It is not often in Turkey that you see a balding, middle-aged man dancing energetically on a bus to rap, pumping his fists.

But that is the way that Muharrem İnce, a prominent opposition candidate in Sunday’s presidential election until he dropped out of the race on Thursday, chose to woo the youth vote, sharing the video of his exertions on social media.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the only man with a chance of beating sitting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a septuagenarian and has found a less physically demanding way of appealing to first-time voters: He is often to be seen in videos and at rallies making a heart with his hands.

The president himself has not opted for such tactics. But he has made promises specifically designed to appeal to young voters, such as free internet access and lower taxes on mobile phone use.

First-time voters, many of them undecided, make up 8% of the Turkish electorate, and with the outcome of the election on a knife edge, “every vote counts,” says Ömer Özkizilcik, an independent political analyst.

Polls vary in their predictions of which way young voters – who have known no other Turkish leader but Mr. Erdoğan – will lean. But Nevzat Taşcı, who heads a private initiative to boost young people’s participation in politics, says the six-party opposition coalition led by Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu is winning most of the youth vote.

That coalition includes Islamists, secular politicians, nationalists, and ethnic Kurds, a heterogeneous mix that appeals to young people, says Mr. Taşcı. “The younger generation has more empathy with those who are different from them,” he argues. “They are not as polarized and have more solidarity than the older generation.” 

Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, while not the most charismatic of candidates, “managed to gather so many different people with so many opinions with a common purpose. It’s amazing to bring people together in our polarized country,” says Arman Unal, a first-time voter and student at Bosphorus University who hopes a new government would improve freedom of speech and repair the economy.

Yet Mr. Erdoğan enjoys support from young people who do not trust a fragmented opposition whose members discriminated against religious conservatives in the past. They are members of the pious generation the president had promised to raise.

Irem Nur Keskin, a recent university graduate whose degree in public relations has not yet secured her a job, still has faith in the government. “I’m very happy to vote for our president,” she says. “We have some problems in our country, but I believe these problems will be solved soon, and many opportunities will arise for young people.” 

Özge Sebzeci

Irem Nur Keskin is an Erdoğan supporter and a first-time voter from Istanbul.

Centennial elections

Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections occur in a year that marks 100 years since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, formed a republic in 1923 from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and built a secular democracy. 

Critics say Mr. Erdoğan has undermined that system, by concentrating power in the presidency rather than in parliament and officially promoting conservative religious values.

“Without change” at the elections, “autocracy will persist,” says Aydin Gunduz, an expert in comparative politics at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in the capital, Ankara. “The present trend is towards autocracy, not democracy ... but there is potential for great change.”

The elections are also widely seen as an international bellwether, he adds, given the proliferation of populist leaders worldwide. “Turkey can offer insights for all cases of autocracy across the globe,” Dr. Gunduz suggests.

Polls show Mr. Erdoğan and Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu are neck and neck; if neither presidential candidate secures 50% of the vote on Sunday, they will compete in a runoff. The campaign mood has been tense but jubilant with packed campaign rallies and events on the streets across the country featuring music, dancing, and impassioned speeches. Voting is mandatory and polls suggest that 90% of first-time voters, including 240,000 Syrian refugees who have been granted citizenship, will turn out.

Even if Mr. Erdoğan ends up losing, he and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) supporters may retain control of parliament, though that body was stripped of many of its powers by a widely criticized 2017 constitutional referendum that created a strong executive presidency.

“Erdoğan uses the democratic apparatus to garner more power. Everything Erdoğan has done has been a manipulation of democratic rules,” says Elmira Bayrasli, director of the Globalization and International Affairs program at Bard College in New York.

Özge Sebzeci

Abdulsamet Oz, who hopes to become a military drone pilot, supports President Erdoğan. "I believe he did good things for this country," he says.

Boom to bust

Mr. Erdoğan’s transformation from a working class politician to strongman is ironic, says Ms. Bayrasli, who once had high hopes for the president.

“I believe that he did get into politics with genuine concern for working class Turks,” she says. “He did improve the economy and made it possible to embrace religion and erase divisions. But because he became a leader of a country that had weak institutions and rule of law, the power became more important than the people.”

Since Mr. Erdoğan first became prime minister 20 years ago, when many first-time voters were not yet born, Turkey’s economy has grown more than threefold, and average per capita income has also nearly tripled.

“First-time voters have TV sets, cars, and phones,” points out Ms. Bayrasli. “They don’t remember Turkey without Erdoğan, and that’s dangerous” for him since they never knew their country before its development boom.

All the more so now that the president’s unorthodox interest rate policies have crashed the value of the Turkish currency and sparked annual inflation now running at 44%, according to official figures, making life difficult for everyone, including young voters.

“I used to be able to buy tea, baklava, and maybe a coffee for three liras,” says Demir Karabacak, head of an opposition youth group in Istanbul. “Today I can’t even buy a coffee for that.”

Also alarming young voters is the 20% unemployment that afflicts the 18-25 age group, as the country’s economic crisis saps its ability to create jobs. “Unemployment could be a motivator to vote against the government if inflation is not dropping,” predicts Dr. Gunduz.  

Özge Sebzeci

Belma Daldal, a mother and graphic designer, recently gained Turkish citizenship and will vote for the first time in Sunday's elections. She says the economic crisis and rent hikes are hurting her family in Istanbul.

Mr. Erdoğan’s assault on freedoms, firing or jailing critics and opponents, raises more hackles among young people than it does among many older voters, and the recent earthquake, in which 54,000 people died, revealed corruption and collusion between government authorities and construction firms that sidestepped safety regulations.

“The discrepancy between the youth vote and the average Turkish voter may be of the utmost importance,” suggests Mr. Özkizilcik, the analyst.

Among Mr. Erdoğan’s first-time voter base are the thousands of Syrian refugees who have become Turkish citizens. Although the president has campaigned on an anti-refugee platform just as virulent as the opposition’s xenophobic rhetoric, his track record on the issue is positive, says Usama, a humanitarian worker of Syrian origin who asked to use only his first name.

“The opposition is calling for us to be expelled,” Usama says from Gaziantep, a southeastern city with a large Syrian population. “The AKP has been welcoming to refugees and vulnerable people.”

Belma Daldal, a graphic designer, recently became a Turkish citizen through marriage and will be voting in Turkey for the first time on Sunday. Ms. Daldal, originally from Bosnia, says the economic crisis and rent hikes are hurting her family in Istanbul.

“The ruling party has its long list of glorious achievements, but as history has shown, every rise has its fall, and it would be better to step down graciously,” Ms. Daldal says. 

“I am not impressed by the [opposition] coalition’s plan, nor the main candidate, and I wish there were stronger options with a more charismatic leader,” she says. “But I am very reluctantly casting my vote for change.”

Days after former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sudden arrest unleashed a firestorm of anger and plunged several cities into chaos, Pakistan may have a chance to catch its breath. 

In an unexpected decision Friday, the Islamabad High Court granted Mr. Khan bail and barred his arrest in other registered cases until after the weekend. This comes after supporters took to the streets in a series of violent protests that have targeted both government buildings and military property.

The demonstrations have led to at least eight deaths and thousands of arrests, with some detainees being held illegally without charge. In many places, troops have been deployed to quell the unrest, and services like Twitter and Google have been blocked to stop protesters from mobilizing.

Mr. Khan’s release may help slow the growing protests, say experts, but will likely do little to reverse the damage to the reputation of Pakistan’s most powerful institutions. 

Indeed, this week marks an unprecedented escalation in the showdown between Mr. Khan and the Pakistani military, which has ruled the country from the shadows for decades but vowed late last year to end its political meddling.

Critics say the politician’s arrest at the hands of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) – a watchdog granted wide-ranging powers by the army and currently headed by a retired three-star general – reflects poorly on that promise. 

“The National Accountability Bureau is vested with several draconian powers that it really shouldn’t be vested with,” says Abdul Moiz Jaferii, a Karachi-based lawyer. “It should have been declared unconstitutional a long time ago, but hasn’t because it has always been the favorite tool of the military establishment to engineer politics with.”

Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

Security officers escort former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the Islamabad High Court, Islamabad, Pakistan, May 12, 2023. Mr. Khan was granted bail on Friday, days after his sudden arrest unleashed a firestorm of anger, largely directed toward the military.

Anti-corruption watchdog or army’s clean-up crew?

The charges against Mr. Khan relate to a corruption case in which the NAB has accused him of reaching a quid pro quo arrangement with billionaire real estate developer Malik Riaz, ultimately depriving the exchequer of more than $230 million. In return for the prime minister’s help, the NAB alleges, Mr. Riaz gifted 57 acres of valuable land to a trust registered in the names of Mr. Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi. Mr. Khan and his political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), deny the allegations.

“It is a solid case to answer because there’s been a favor extended to Malik Riaz unduly, which allowed him to effectively pocket money” bound for the state treasury, says Mr. Jaferii.

Merits of the case notwithstanding, Mr. Khan’s arrest has brought heightened scrutiny of Pakistan’s most influential institutions.

Pakistan has had six different prime ministers since 2008. Every one of them has been prosecuted by the NAB. Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who preceded Mr. Khan, argues that the organization’s influence has rendered the country ungovernable. 

“Under the rules of business, the principal accounting officer of a ministry is not the minister but the secretary [the most senior civil servant in a government department]. To get to a politician, they have to accuse the secretary of corruption,” he explains. “So what they [NAB officers] do is they give the secretary two choices: You can either become an accused and go to jail, or you can become a witness against the minister.”

According to Mr. Abbasi, this fear of persecution has impacted the day-to-day governance of Pakistan. “Whatever work [bureaucrats] do, they take the path of least resistance, and you don’t get optimal decisions,” he says. 

The events of the last few days have only added to the sense of polarization in Pakistani society. The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to declare Mr. Khan’s arrest illegal was chastised by the government, with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif accusing the superior judiciary of bias toward Mr. Khan. 

“The judiciary has become like an iron shield for Imran Khan,” he is reported to have said in a cabinet meeting Thursday.

It is the integrity of the armed forces, however, that has been questioned most bitterly. 

Fayaz Aziz/Reuters

A Khan supporter participates in a protest against the former prime minister's arrest, in Peshawar, Pakistan, May 9, 2023. The charges against Mr. Khan relate to a corruption case in which officials have accused him of depriving Pakistan's treasury of more than $230 million.

Military under fire

For decades the sacred cow in Pakistani politics, the army has suffered a heavy blow to its prestige just eight months after its outgoing chief gave a commitment that it would henceforth remain within its constitutional limits. 

A day before his arrest, Mr. Khan accused two-star general and Inter-Services Intelligence officer Faisal Naseer, by name, of plotting to have him killed, a statement that experts say crossed an unspoken red line. These allegations, along with the seemingly retributive timing of Mr. Khan’s arrest, incited some of Mr. Khan’s supporters to target military installations. Altogether, these amounted to an unprecedented week of attacks against Pakistan’s “establishment.”

“There is a rage among people about what has been happening over the last year, not only politically, but also economically,” says former PTI minister Shireen Mazari. “And everybody knows that the real power behind decision-making since the ouster of the PTI government has been the military, so the anger was directed at the military and not at the ... government.”

At around 2 a.m. on Friday, some six hours after speaking to the Monitor, Dr. Mazari was arrested by police at her residence in Islamabad. Her daughter, a human rights lawyer, told the Monitor that Pakistan was effectively under military rule. 

“There is no civilian government in Pakistan right now,” says Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir. “Orders are coming directly from senior army and intelligence officials. There is complete abuse of law and impunity for the same.”

With the senior leadership of PTI in jail, there are fears that skirmishes between protesters and the state could continue over the weekend – but even if they do not, the crisis has left virtually every institution in the country tarnished.

“We were already facing a crippling economic crisis, an unprecedented political crisis, a constitutional crisis, burgeoning terrorism, a crisis of trust,” says a PTI senator, Sania Nishtar. “In this environment, the politically motivated illegal arrest of Pakistan’s most popular leader will have far-reaching consequences.”

My mother was a mystery. Part of it was her job. Part of it was her. 

Mom left my abusive father in the middle of the night when I was 4 months old. He emptied their joint bank account. My grandmother took us in.

Back then, divorce was uncommon. I was the only kid I knew with no dad at home. But Mom embodied the father role well. She worked full time at an important job, leaving early in the morning but returning in time for the dinners Gommy made. 

I wasn’t allowed to say where my mom worked, exactly: “For the government,” I’d say, or “Across the river.” We lived in the Washington area, so anyone paying attention knew that meant the CIA. She was an analyst, but that’s all I ever knew. My mom was very good at keeping secrets – from everyone, even me. 

I heard this story later, from a cousin. When he and his parents returned from a trip abroad, my mother – his Aunt Shirley – went to pick them up at the airport. She was carrying a satchel as she walked into the customs area, and a guard stopped her. (This was way before airport security was tightened.) My mom demanded to talk to his supervisor. The hapless guard also got a tongue-lashing from my mother. They let her pass. On the way to the car, my cousin asked her, “Aunt Shirley, what do you have in that bag?”

“Some top-secret documents,” she replied casually. “And a gun.”

A gun! I never knew she had a gun. 

I’ve always been proud of my mom. I looked up to her. She was a powerful, successful career woman, super intelligent and super cool. She stood tall, her back straight, and her stylish (at the time) permed hair hugged her head like a helmet. She always dressed just so. The purse matched the shoes. Specific jewelry accessorized each outfit. She never wore pants. She donned culottes to work in the garden.

Her work was a mystery, and so was she. She didn’t share her emotions or innermost thoughts very often. We weren’t friends the way many of my contemporaries are with their daughters. Our relationship was the norm then – not that my mom would’ve behaved any differently now. Her personality was perfect for her high-pressure job, but enigmatic to her only child. I couldn’t get past her imposing façade. Nor was she always so thrilled with my façade: I tended toward avant-garde, out-there outfits – colorful,
patterned, experimental. I thought I looked interesting and artistic. Mom thought I looked a mess. “What will people think?” she’d lament.

She had a favorite chair, a black rocker with gold stenciling. She would get going in it, with a far-off look that told me ideas were spinning through her mind. She was a big gum chewer – Juicy Fruit. The more her thoughts whirled, the faster she’d chew and the harder she’d rock, as emotions played across her face. Was she thinking about something top-secret? Or what was for dinner? I never knew. 

Only late in her life did the mystery start to lift. I discovered that she’d passed up several promotions so that I wouldn’t have to change schools or leave my friends. She waited until I’d graduated high school before moving up to Boston to run the agency’s office there. She finally had her own place. 

Just as I was looking for my first newspaper job as a photographer, Mom retired. At that time, she was the highest ranking woman in the agency, my grandmother told me. Mom never said a word about that.

Here’s what else I know: Mom made a difference in the world – in secret – while showing me that a woman can do anything. I’m trying to make a difference, too – publicly. (“You’re so lucky,” she told me, “to have your work be seen.”) I know that she put me first, that she paid for my college and grad school out of her savings. I know we kept living with her mother so that I’d be looked after when she was working. I may never have known her innermost thoughts, but her unconditional love for me was never hidden. She’s been gone for decades now. I miss her. But I still see her face: It stares back at me every time I look in a mirror. 

And there’s no mystery about that.

REUTERS

Yunus Efe, a Bogazici University student, chats with a friend at a coffee house in Istanbul, Turkey, May 4.

On Sunday, Turkey will vote in an election with consequences reaching far beyond its borders. For the country’s 64 million voters and their families, the immediate concerns are bread and butter. Inflation peaked at 85% last October. The nation’s currency has plunged 57% against the U.S. dollar.

At a time when many democracies are struggling, Turkey’s ballot for president and parliament marks a test case. “The question is simple: ... fear or hope?” wrote journalist Ece Temelkuran in The Guardian.

As Turkey’s leader for 20 years, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slid toward one-man rule, consolidating authority in a new, all-powerful presidency while undermining parliament, the judiciary, and the central bank. Since surviving a coup attempt in 2016, he has arrested some 80,000 people and muzzled institutions like the media and universities with layers of new restrictions.

Polls show Mr. Erdoğan trailing his opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a consensus candidate backed by six opposition parties who has vowed to restore integrity to the country’s democratic institutions. Their differences have played out on the campaign trail in a debate over individual and national identity rarely seen even in the most robust democracies.

Mr. Erdoğan has styled himself as a populist Islamist who eschewed Turkey’s modern secularism to restore Muslim mores. In contrast, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, who comes from a minority Muslim sect called the Alevis, sought in a recent video to put universal qualities at the center of Turk identity.

“We can choose to be good people, to be honest and ethical, to have a conscience, to be virtuous and just,” he said in a widely viewed video. “We can choose to live a better life, in a free and prosperous country.”

That message was tailored to appeal to women and youth who have emerged as sources of civic strength. In Turkey, young, first-time voters who have lived their whole lives under Mr. Erdoğan’s rule make up 8% of the electorate. A recent poll showed that just 1 in 5 Turks age 18-25 support the president and ruling party. Another poll found that 62% lament the underrepresentation of women in politics.

“The issue of female politicians is not just a matter of equal representation,” said Nilden Bayazit, a women’s rights advocate. “A female politician is needed for a democratic society, for justice, to solve the climate problem, to end corruption, to transform education policies and to regulate family policies.”

Critics of Mr. Erdoğan worry he may not accept a defeat. Previous national and local elections were mired in fraud. But Turks living abroad have already voted in record numbers. On voting day, civil society groups will dispatch monitors to polling stations armed with apps and social media to report results and irregularities. Regardless of the ballot’s outcome, a mental shift toward self-government has already taken place.