Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took questions from a select audience of young people on some of the most contentious aspects of his time in power, in a carefully stage-managed appeal to first-time voters before Sunday’s election.
(Bloomberg) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took questions from a select audience of young people on some of the most contentious aspects of his time in power, in a carefully stage-managed appeal to first-time voters before Sunday’s election.
An official trailer for the pre-recorded event published in advance focused on the questions, which probed Erdogan’s position on same-sex marriage, the jailing of journalists and his alliance with an Islamic party with alleged links to a terrorist group.
In the full version, broadcast on state television from the presidential palace on Thursday night, several questions were prefaced with thanks for the president’s track record and his uncompromising answers were met with applause.
Some social media users later said the participants had links to or positions within Erdogan’s party, sharing photos purporting to show them posing with government officials.
The program underlines the importance of the youth vote in the election, especially the roughly five million citizens who’ll be voting for the first time. It comes after the main opposition leader promised young people he would overhaul what he called Erdogan’s “discriminatory system.”
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Asked if his resistance to same-sex marriage was discriminatory, Erdogan said: “LGBT is a poison introduced into the institution of the family. It’s not possible for us to accept it as a country where 90% of the population is Muslim.”
The president ignored a question on why the head of the state-run relief organization had stayed in his post despite calls from some officials for his resignation after the handling of February’s earthquakes.
He also repeated his denial that his electoral ally, Huda Par, has links to terrorism. The party was founded by people linked to the pro-Kurdish militant group Hezbollah, which isn’t related to the Lebanese group of the same name.
–With assistance from Firat Kozok.
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