Turkey’s Erdogan calls opponent a ‘drunk’ as tight election looms
- Turkey’s president stepped up his rhetoric against opponents a week before what is expected to be a tight election
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade rule could hang in the balance, with latest polls suggesting the vote may go to a run-off
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu a “drunk” during his campaign’s largest rally ahead next Sunday’s election – the toughest of his two-decade rule.
Addressing a sea of supporters in Istanbul on Sunday, Erdogan said Kilicdaroglu could drink as much as he wanted, but the people would not abandon the country to a “drunkard”.
The 69-year-old Turkish president also once again accused his challenger of working with “terrorists”.
Erdogan gave the number of participants gathered on the tarmac of Istanbul’s old Ataturk airport as 1.7 million.
There was no official estimate on the number of participants, but Erdogan and his party chartered 10,000 buses to bring in people from 39 provinces.
The latest polls suggest that Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu are locked in a dead heat and probably heading to a run-off on May 28. Erdogan’s popularity has been hit by a cost-of-living crisis driven by runaway inflation.