As a Turkish person living in Britain, I don't like the western double standard around our democracy

This Sunday the people of Turkey will go to the polls in what may prove to be the most significant election to be held for a generation. The Turkish government, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said it seeks to bring stability to the country by holding elections earlier than scheduled.

As a Turkish national who is studying in the UK, I know how the threat of terrorism and the challenges of uncertainty within globalised economies may affect the stability of a nation. Turkey remains an island of comparative calm in a region rife with instability and violence, which has managed to sustain its democracy – something that should be applauded.

Yet, when the elections that were originally scheduled to take place in November 2019 were brought forward, I was stunned by the narratives that were formed in the British and European press. Gone were the basic facts – as most Turks see them – that the snap election had been called in response to requests from the opposition and to overcome uncertainty facing the nation.

Instead, the move was portrayed as a power grab by Erdoğan, who was "capitalising on his popularity" and pre-empting "Turkey’s currency and economic downtrend." This is said neither to defend Erdoğan’s policies nor to take any sides in the matter, but rather to highlight the importance of the development that will come through the process of strengthening the democracy. Regardless of who wins the election, all young Turks like myself want is the sovereignty and democratic processes of our country to be respected.

In the street interviews we held in Istanbul as part of the New Young Turks Election Project, we heard a variety of opinions from people across Turkish society. The overarching narrative was the happiness at seeing not one or two candidates but six running for the presidency. And when questioned about whether they saw these elections as being fair, most agreed that the culture of democracy is deeply entrenched within our society, so we as a people would not accept anything other than a free election.

As an international student, the question I am often being asked is: “How does it feel to live under a dictatorship?” Not only is this a laughable assertion, but one that I had not understood until I looked at the coverage of the current elections. When I speak to most of my friends, we all tend to hold the same stance. Regardless of what political party we will be voting for, we all know that Turkey is a democratic state.

Worse still, Turkey has been held to a different standard to other European nations. When British prime minister Theresa May called for a snap election and was only able to continue in her role by forging an alliance with the DUP neither the legitimacy of the elections nor May’s premiership was seriously called into question.

This clear double standard between Turkey and other nations has slowly been creeping into our public consciousness for years. Such a misinformed narrative has been dominant on the airwaves and in the columns of many of the international media outlets shaping the discourse around Turkey.

In 2017, the French presidential elections were conducted under a state of emergency that had been ongoing since the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. In its report about the elections, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) stated that "this did not affect the campaign environment and the conduct of election." However, when it comes to Turkey, the same organisation posits that fair elections may be in jeopardy due to concerns around freedoms in particular around the media.

This criticism is in fact a red herring – after all, media ownership is a global issue. Media companies have always put corporate interests above political allegiances. If we look at the UK alone, a report released in 2015 by Media Reform UK found that Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere controlled more than half of all online and print national news publications both of whom support the Conservative Party.

Over the past three years, Turkish people have gone to the polls and exercised their democratic will more frequently than in Germany, France, and the UK. The engagement in national elections in Turkey is higher than many other democracies across the globe. The latest turnout statistics for a Turkish national election was 85 per cent compared to France’s 65 per cent, Germany’s 76 per cent, and the United States' 55 per cent. For a country that is constantly peddled as undemocratic and a government that is so often sold as authoritarian, Turkey uses its democratic mechanisms rather frequently.

With 52 per cent of voters below the age of 45, Turkey exemplifies people's desire to partake in civic life, so much so that two years ago, we were ready to sacrifice our lives to stop a violent military coup and hold on tight to our democracy.

So, the question I have been wrestling with as a Turkish student in the West remains: why the double standard? I am yet to find an adequate answer.

Kubra Ozturk is a postgraduate student in war studies at King’s College London