Granting citizenship to Syrian refugees could tip the scales in Turkey's elections next year

By John Solomou
Nicosia [Cyprus] April 25 : The question of granting citizenship to refugees from Syria and Afghanistan is gradually becoming a controversial issue in Turkey, as the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party Kemal Kilicdaroglu openly accuses President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of naturalizing asylum seekers allowing them to vote so that he may keep his post as President.
Kilicdaroglu and other leaders of the opposition parties in Turkey are clearly concerned that Erdogan's AKP party would gain an election advantage in the general elections scheduled to take place in June 2023 by turning a large part of the approximately 5 million refugees hosted in Turkey into voters.
In the previous general elections held in June 2018, the question of naturalized Syrian refugees who were allowed to vote was a major issue in the political campaign of opposition parties in Turkey, as the naturalized refugees were expected to vote for AKP and improve the party's performance mainly in the southern provinces of Turkey.
It is not clear how much their vote had a significant impact on the 2018 elections, as the numbers of naturalized refugees at the time were much smaller than the current ones.
Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has stated that as of 31 December 2021, the total number of Syrians who became Turkish citizens was 193,293. According to recent statistics, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is estimated at 3,736,000.
UNHCR, citing official figures, says that there are 300,000 Afghans residing in Turkey, with 183,000 officially registered and the remainder undocumented. Opposition parties insist that the number of unregistered Afghans is much higher and that in total refugees account approximately for 10 per cent of Turkey's population of 84 million.
Many political parties as well as ordinary people in Turkey, seeing that refugee ghettos have made their appearance, especially in big cities, and that refugees accept very low wages, depriving ordinary people of work and consequently the means for their livelihood, have been calling for the repatriation of refugees.
Syrians compete with locals for low-income jobs in Turkey's tight job market and are frequently asked to work 3-4 hours more than their Turkish counterparts - usually for less income. Ruling AKP party says that in some cities, for example, Gaziantep, refugees keep the industry alive. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians work in the heaviest and most difficult jobs.

On 15 March President Erdogan declared: "The opposition says that if they win the election, they will send the Syrian, Afghan and other refugees in the country away. We will not send them."
Responding to a question on this subject by journalist Murat Yetkin, Kemal Kilicdaroglu replied: "Erdogan said in his own words that if he stays in power, he will not send refugees, or, in other words, asylum seekers, to their countries. We think this is wrong for three reasons.
1- Asylum seekers cause corruption in society, primarily cultural 2- The labor of refugees is ruthlessly exploited, 3. It seems that he never wanted to make peace with Syria. We (the Republican People's Party) will make peace. With a solution in Syria, we will make peace, provide the conditions for the refugees to live in safety, and enable them to return to their homes in safety."
Kilicdaroglu added that if Erdogan wanted to give citizenship to asylum seekers, a referendum should be held to ask the public about making refugees citizens and allowing them to vote.
A recent study carried out by the Turkish-German University's Migration and Integration Research Center shows that the perceptions of Turkish citizens toward Syrian refugees have significantly turned negative.
While 72 per cent of Turks believe that Syrian refugees will harm Turkey's socio-cultural structure, 74 per cent think that public services will either deteriorate or diminish because of the refugees. Turkish citizens prefer segregation rather than integration and cohabitation with Syrian refugees.
Syrian refugees in Turkey have been increasingly targeted by hate speech and hate crimes and are blamed for many of Turkey's social and economic troubles. Several opposition party leaders promised to send Syrians back home when they come to power.
In two hate crimes in August 2021 a Syrian refugee was shot dead in Istanbul, and in September a 16-year-old Syrian was stabbed to death in the Black Sea city of Samsun.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on November 16, 2021, in Izmir, a Turkish man poured gasoline over three Syrian refugees while they were asleep and set them on fire. SOHR said there had been no prior dispute between the Syrian men and the perpetrator.
In August 2021 a group of locals attacked Syrian refugees, their houses, workplaces and cars in Ankara's Altindag district, throwing rocks at homes, smashing shops and cars, and chanting anti-Syrian slogans.
Many Turks are worried that the influx of Syrian refugees is changing the demographic structure of their towns. Lutfu Savas, the Mayor of Hatay, where there are some 433,000 Syrian refugees, says that three out of every four women giving birth are Syrians, while the Mayor of Mersin complains that one-fifth of the city's population are Syrian refugees.
One may think that the opposition in Turkey is vastly exaggerating the impact the vote of naturalized refugees can have in elections in a country of 84 million, but the fact remains that in some Turkish provinces the parliamentary seats, for example in Hatay, are decided by a few hundred votes.
So, if Syrian refugees who openly support Erdogan's AKP party vote for its candidates, they will tip the scales and AKP may have the majority in the new Parliament. Many Syrian refugees are convinced that the continuation of the naturalization project is linked to the survival of the AKP party and its ability to remain in power.