There is no opposition candidates who would be able to seriously compete with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has a serious electorate, Tigran Loqmagezian, a Turkic specialist, told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

According to him, he will win, if there are no surprises and Erdogan makes no mistakes that would result in losing his supporters.

The Turkologist recalled that such a surprise already occurred two weeks ago when the former leader of the Grey Wolves was killed, leading to a stir and an exodus from the Nationalist Movement Party.

"Nevertheless, Erdoğan enjoys the ardent support of 30-40% of the electorate, who will vote for him even if the economic situation deteriorates and living standards fall. This includes the nationalist part of the population, which supported him after the split with Gulen," Lokmagezian explained.

He noted that all the power in the country is concentrated in Erdogan's hands, who also uses judicial pressure against the opposition, as it happened with the Mayor of Istanbul, who is not a serious threat to Erdogan's power, but the latter still decided to insure and liquidated him.

Even if the persecution of the opposition will lead to a strengthening of its influence in society, Erdoğan, the expert believes, is ready to use force, as he did in the past, in the same Diyarbekrir against the Kurds. If an atmosphere of fear is created in the society, Erdoğan will get more votes, as people will quickly succumb to this method.

He believes that only the U.S. can exert influence on Turkey from the outside, since they themselves brought Erdogan in. However, the Turkish president understands that no matter how much the West may like Ankara's policies, it is nonetheless the West's interests in the greater region that it can and does promote at the moment.

"Even if the opposition wins, nothing in its foreign policy will change. Turkey is pursuing a state policy, and the change of power will not affect it, as history shows. Turkey's policy has never changed in 100 years. Every party in Turkey has a nationalist bias, even the Communist Party. This manifests itself most vividly in case of external problems," Lokmagezian concluded.

Turkey will have presidential and parliamentary elections in 2023. The ruling Justice and Development Party and Nationalist Party have already formed an Alliance of the People and intend to nominate Erdogan. Turkey's six-party opposition, which also includes former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's Future Party, could announce a single candidate in February.

Aram Danielyan