Momentous Elections in Turkey and Thailand, Black Sea Grain Initiative, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Turkey holds its presidential election. Thais head to the polls for their general election. And, the future of the Black Sea Grain Initiative is at stake once again. It's May 11, 2023 and time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins. So Bob, great to see you. Let's begin in Turkey. We've discussed the multiple domestic and international stakes in Turkey's presidential election. And on Sunday, Turkish voters are finally going to choose between the autocratic incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main challenger, let's see if I can get this right, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who's promising to restore democratic norms. Erdogan has held onto power for two decades, but he's facing high inflation and a devastating earthquake, which seems to have at least weakened his hold on power. Could this finally be the end of the Erdogan dynasty?

MCMAHON:
That is the burning question. And it certainly is, according to all close Turkey watchers that I've seen and read in the past couple of weeks, this is the most credible challenge that Erdogan has faced in a while. And it's because of a combination of things, many of which he referred to. In some parts of the country, ongoing outrage at the way the government had dealt with building codes and the the cronyism that led to faulty building codes and crumbling structures under the earthquake. The earthquake has been devastating. And, some government officials have admitted problems. Erdogan has been quick to say he's the one who is able to come in and truly right some of these places and get them rebuilt and so forth. But, still in all the earthquake is a sore point.

Broader issues involve the stewardship of the economy, where Erdogan's policies have been quixotic in some ways certainly. Including, his aversion to higher interest rates, which are seen as a basic step that would need to get inflation under control. The country still has very high inflation. It had spiked to about 85 percent a couple of years ago. It's still at about 45 percent according to recent reports. And, Turks just have this feeling of a eroding standard of living and a one-man rule that is taking the country in the wrong direction.

This is what Kilicdaroglu, as you referred to, is trying to seize on. From what I've seen, he's tried to avoid actually getting caught up in Erdogan's personality and more just dealing with the systemic problems facing Turkey. He is as bland as Erdogan is charismatic. He's a civil servant, but I think he emerged as the front-runner for what's called this United Opposition in Turkey. Because of that, he is not somebody who's going to arouse controversy necessarily, but basically speak sensibly. Speak sensibly about trying to return parts of Turkey to what had been the direction the country was going in, including under the first ten or so years under Erdogan who emerged as a national figure after he was the competent mayor of Istanbul. Erdogan has become autocratic. And so, it is very much a vote about that. 

We'll have to see whether the Turkish system can both withstand a challenge, and Carla, I should note in these Turkish elections that in addition to president, the voters will be selecting 600 members of the Grand National Assembly. In the presidential race, if no candidate makes it above 50 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff scheduled for May 28th. For parliamentary elections, parties must obtain at least 7 percent of votes to enter parliament. The polls are showing very close race with maybe Kilicdaroglu one or two percentage points ahead, but then it's also a general election, so we'll have to see whether the United Opposition emerges in the lead or can form a stronger block in parliament or the AK party of Erdogan prevails. So, tons at stake, and we can get into some of the other questions as well, Carla.

ROBBINS:
So, Erdogan controls a lot of the levers of power. He's intimidated a lot of journalists in the past and thrown a lot of them in jail. How free and fair has the campaign been so far. And, do we think that he's prepared to bow out if he actually loses?

MCMAHON:
Well, as our colleague Steven Cook says, "You got to not assume that Erdogan will go gently into that good night." And he has taken steps before the elections take place to mobilize the media on his side. So, he controls a lot of the media. He has clamped down on any critical voices as anti-state elements. He has muzzled for example, the person who was seen as one of his early rivals, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was the mayor of Istanbul, and basically banning him from politics for allegedly insulting judges on the Supreme Election Council. And he has lined up the judiciary on his side. And so, there's a great deal of concern that he has already set in place a faulty system that now that election day is coming around, it's going to be hard for this system to produce a fair result.

We'll have to see though. Again, the fact that Kilicidaroglu is still holding his own on various polls and in election appearances seems to indicate that this is a real challenge. It's going to be something that will be the first big test probably since a previous challenge, in which, back in 2019 Erdogan enforced a rerun of the Istanbul elections saying his candidate lost on a phony technicality. But, his attempt to get a new election stood up and to get a supportive candidate failed. İmamoğlu was elected by even greater numbers. So, there is a template for Turks voting independently and voting against Erdogan's wishes. It's just on such a bigger scale, he holds a lot of levers, and he does, as I said, have personal charisma and the ability as a very powerful single individual to make things happen, both in a positive way and a negative way.

ROBBINS:
So, let's talk about another election where the stakes for democracy are at least as high. Also, on Sunday, Thailand is going to hold a general election. The country's been under military rule for nine years with some civilian window dressing. Can you tell us who the key players are in this vote? And is the military now ready to cede power?

MCMAHON:
Well, it's a election in some ways has echoes of the Turkish election, in that, here's a country with clear autocratic trajectory and yet enough democratic backbone, enough democratic DNA to go forward with these elections and to actually have candidates who are able to run and to challenge the prevailing leadership. So, you have first of all the Prime Minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, who is pitted against a person seen as a real rising star, very young still, Paetongtarn Shinawatra. And if the name Shinawatra sounds familiar, that is because she is the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, who is in exile, but he was an extremely popular tycoon, he was ousted in a military coup back in 2006. Since then, again, there's been a military coup in 2014. The military is a power behind the throne so to speak, and the throne by the way is also a power.

Thailand has a monarch that's becoming more and more assertive. The King Maha, I'll just use his first name, because I will bungle his last name. He has shown a willingness to get more involved in public life, in things like public finances for example, and even strategic affairs. But, there's also been a movement by Thais to push back against that, one of the parties that's running for election is the Move Forward Party has actually brought up the issue of the monarchy. Last year it opened a dialogue about should there still be laws protecting it, the so-called lese majeste laws that protect the monarchy. A number of people have been heavily punished for speaking bluntly about the monarch in Thailand. So, this is not an issue to be dealt with lightly, but it's been raised. And so, Move Forward is going to be watched, but really the main opposition party is Pheu Thai. It's connected to Shinawtra, both father and daughter, although the father again is not directly connected with it.

And, this is, according to polls, farther than we saw in the Turkish opposition, the Thai opposition looks like it is poised to win very big. And, there's a number of reasons for that. Part of this being that with a lot of young voters, they have shown overwhelmingly they want a change. And so, we'll have to see. The government deliberately scheduled the elections for May 14th, which is a day when university students will be taking exams. It makes it harder for them to vote. But still, all the polls have shown again and again that they seem poised to win.

Now, let me do a quick rundown on Thai election law. It holds that a party or coalition has to win a majority of the lower house plus the upper house to hold sway. The lower house is 500 seats, the Senate is 250 seats, and the Senate is pretty much under the sway of the military. So, most observers write that off as an option. So this means, about 376 votes are needed to become the governing party or coalition in parliament, 376 votes in the lower house election. So keep an eye on those numbers as they come in Thailand.

ROBBINS:
It's too bad we don't have John King doing the magic board for the Thai election.

MCMAHON:
Exactly. So we're going to be looking for a Pheu Thai and maybe Move Forward coalition potentially emerging. However, we'll have to see also if the military-backed government is going to allow that. Again, a country with a lot of coups, has had a history of seesawing between a democratic trajectory and then a military backsliding. And so, there's a lot at stake, as in Turkey, about the direction of Thailand and the direction of democracy in the region.

ROBBINS:
So, the days in which there was pressure from the United States or other democratic nations if the military were not to accept the results, these days seem to have gone as much as there are summits for democracy and all that. All eyes seem to be so focused on Ukraine, I haven't heard any warnings to the military to stay out. Just I haven't heard any pressure. Don't you have the impression, at least I have the impression, that they could probably swipe this one away and everybody would just tottle forward?

MCMAHON:
You're touching on something that's an ongoing problem now in this day and age of backsliding democracy and also of big power competition. In this case, the struggle between the poles of U.S. and China. The U.S. would not like to come down, at least in public, and come out and scold the Thais too much, because it does not want them to just rebuff and move in the camp of China. By the same token though, it does want to see a free and fair democratic election. And, it would be very intriguing to see a new party come into power that has the true support of the Thai public. And that could take them in a direction that's more favorable to the U.S., including a tougher line on the junta leading Myanmar. Myanmar is involved in a large and awful civil war that's raging across the country. And, the current Thai leadership has been supportive of leadership in Myanmar. Any new leadership in Thailand with Pheu Thai in the vanguard is expected to be tougher on Myanmar.

We'll have to see. That's getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. For Thailand itself though, I think the U.S. would like to see a free and fair election. It's a military ally of Thailand. And, if it sees any blatant irregularities, it would have to move towards sanctions. Those become then a strong irritant in relations. And so, as you say, Carla, it seems like the military-backed government holds a lot of cards, but by the same token, there is popular will that elections produce, and I think they're going to have to play their cards carefully.

Carla, let's move back in the direction of Turkey, and more specifically the Black Sea. Back in March, we talked on the podcast about the Black Sea Grain Initiative about to expire, and this was an initiative that was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations that allowed Ukrainian ships to leave Black Sea ports and export via the Black Sea. Now we're reaching this expiry date possibly in the coming week. Russia's having some doubts. And, it raises questions about will there be a knock-on effect about food supplies in places that have come to really rely on this grain, especially in say North Africa and East Africa. So, why is Russia resisting extending the initiative?

ROBBINS:
So, Bob, as you said, this is the third time this has come up for renewal, and each time the Russians have insisted that they haven't been getting what they were promised, access to international markets for their food and fertilizer exports, which are exempt from American and European sanctions. But they say they're hobbled by over compliance by banks, and insurance, and shipping companies that don't want to take their custom for fear of getting into trouble with the U.S. especially.

The Russians are probably right, that there is some over compliance going on. And certainly, the sanctions have made their commercial lives harder. Boohoo. But, by no means, impossible. The Russians don't publish their trade data, but economists who do track purchases of Russian grain and fertilizers say that Russian grain exports have at least held steady over the last year, and fertilizer sales are likely down but not by an enormous amount. But there is no doubt about is that the Russians are trying to use these negotiations, holding food exports as hostages to get the West to loosen up on the broader sanctions regime, which has been imposed on them for their illegal invasion of Ukraine. And, since this round of negotiations began, they've come up with a very specific set of demands. They want readmission of their state agricultural bank to the SWIFT interbank messaging system. They want lifting restrictions on all maritime insurance. They want reopening of an ammonia pipeline that goes across Ukraine. They want a lifting of Western sanctions targeting Russian individuals, including a fertilizer tycoon. In other words, they want multiple get-out-of-jail-free cards. And, I'm very skeptical they're going to be able to get any of these for this. 

And what they do have already and are likely going to get more of is the UN Secretary General, and Western, and some American officials out there explaining to banks and purchasers that it is in everyone's interest to keep Russian agricultural products on the world market to hold world agricultural prices down and to keep the Russians inside this deal. So, why would the Russians stay in if they don't get what they're demanding? I think they're probably going to get pressure from exactly the countries you were talking about. A lot of this food goes to the developing world and the countries it claims it's champion. Some of these are the fence sitters, and some of these are the ones who have been echoing the Russian line on Ukraine. So, it's been getting a lot of pressure, but it's also been trying to use this as leverage to see what it can get.

We've seen in the last few days, the suggestions from the Turks that, well, maybe they'll get another two-month extension. The Americans are rightly arguing that for the sake of stability that they need a longer extension for this. Interestingly, so far the world food market, the prices have been stabled. I think everyone's betting that they're going to get a deal.

MCMAHON:
So a deal, but a deal that might be just a couple of months of extension, or a kick the can down the road approach?

ROBBINS:
Well, that's what they've been doing. I mean, the last one as we talked about in March was for two months. And, it's very hard to predict what goes on in Putin's head as we've seen throughout this conflict. This thing really matters, as you said. Before the war Ukraine was one of the world's largest grain exporters. After the invasion, food prices, which were already high because of COVID and because of climate change, just absolutely spiked. Price of staple foods rose by 30 percent in Middle Eastern and African countries raising fears of widespread famine. And at the time, the UN Secretary-General, Guterres, said that more than 40 million people were facing "emergency levels of hunger."

And, since the agreement, there's been 30 million metric tons of grain and food stuffs exported from Ukraine, lots of it going through the World Food Program, aid operations in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen. And the UN puts out some really good data on this. Obviously they're a big champion of the deal, and I was just looking at it this morning. 55 percent of the grain has gone to poor developing countries according to this data. And, global food prices have dropped steadily. So, obviously in everybody's interest to keep this going, but the Russians are trying to bargain as much as they can because they want to get out of the other sanctions. So we'll have to see what happens.

MCMAHON:
It'll be interesting to see if the other countries in the region could respond the way they did to the Russian energy threats, which is basically, find an alternative. In this way, find an alternative route. Because I think so far we've seen just concern that Ukrainian grain was going to flood the Eastern and Central European markets and cause problems there. And so that hasn't worked. And they haven't been able to find a rail alternative, I guess, to the huge amounts of grain that can be shipped out. Now that they've had some time to continue to study and react, that could be an alternative route, or is that not right?

ROBBINS:
Well, it's hard to ship across Ukraine itself, because you're in the midst of a war, and because they're trying to move troops, and weapons, and things of that sort, but it's not impossible. I think, a big part of the pressure, of course, has been the surrounding countries, which have been very supportive of Ukrainian refugees and been very supportive of the war. But when it comes down to competition for their farmers, then it comes down to strong domestic politics. And, there have been protests about Ukrainian grain coming in that was supposed to transit countries like Poland, and other countries, and that end up staying in these countries, and lowering prices, and have been seen as unfair competition.

The EU managed to broker a deal that said that this was supposed to be overland transit. And, it's only a recent deal. We'll see whether that deal plays out. Right now, there's a glut of Ukrainian grain moving out through Europe. And so, for all the support that the Poles and the rest of the Eastern European countries have been willing to give when it comes to farmers and their agricultural base, it becomes a very sensitive issue. The domestic politics are very strong there.

MCMAHON:
All right, Carla, we've been talking about a lot of figures, and facts, and percentages, so that means we have to talk about the audience figure of the week I think. And this is where listeners can vote every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org's Instagram story. This week Carla, our audience selected "Russia Launches Sixty Kamikaze Drones." So, please recap what happened.

ROBBINS:
Why don't they ever choose the happy ones, Bob?

MCMAHON:
We try.

ROBBINS:
Yeah. We keep putting some happy ones on that list. So, after a comparative lull, Kyiv's mayor said Russia launched sixty of these so-called kamikaze drones that Ukrainian targets in the early hours of Monday, including thirty-six at the capital. And, as usual, we have to caution that we don't have the precise numbers on these things. Air defenses, according to the Ukrainian defense Ministry managed to shoot them all down, but at least five people were reported to have been hurt from falling debris. These drones, Russia has been using are Iranian made and they're referred to as kamikaze because they hang in the air or loiter over a target until they get the order to attack and then they smash directly into their target, setting off the explosives in their warheads.

And we have to say, the U.S. has also been supplying Ukraine with kamikaze drones as well, so-called switchblade drones. And, Ukraine has been adapting civilian drones for military use and increasing its production of drones. So there's a lot of drones in this war, but it's not just a drone war. On Monday, there were also missiles and artillery. The Ukrainians had a total of 127 targets were hit throughout the country and five people were killed. So it's not clear what set off this latest barrage. Some people suggested it may have been linked to Russia's May 9th Victory Day celebrations, or in retaliation for that still unexplained drone attack on the Kremlin, or anticipation of Ukraine's long awaited spring offensive. But like so many other attacks by the Russians, the thing to remember is these were overwhelmingly focused on civilian targets.

MCMAHON:
So I think you summed it up there, Carla. As we get into the further fog of war between Ukraine and Russia, the Russian pattern of attacks doesn't really seem to be any pattern. It just seems civilian attacks are much more in play, especially at times when Russia seems to be manifestly losing, and the front in Bakhmut, that seems to be the case. I'm curious about, in amidst the drones attack, we heard reports about a hypersonic missile being shot down. Was that something that was not confirmed yet? Or do we know whether in fact Russia is using these and Ukraine has the ability to do this?

ROBBINS:
So, the U.S. announced this week that it's going to be providing another 1.2 billion for Ukraine to buy air defense missiles and other equipment. And obviously, air defense is incredibly important. And, as part of that, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that Ukrainian troops using a U.S. made, Patriot air defense system shot down a hypersonic Russian missile. And so, hypersonic, faster than speed is sound. Russians apparently are using this. People were very excited about hypersonic missiles a couple of years ago, and quite intriguing to know that the Patriots can bring them down.

MCMAHON:
All right, Carla, let's move from the arena of war to something lighter.

ROBBINS:
Thank God.

MCMAHON:
We promised our listeners to try to end these podcasts on a lighter note, and I can't think of a better place in the French Riviera to make things lighter in all aspects. So, I'm talking of course about the Cannes International Film Festival that's coming up. Cannes showcases what's called, "The hidden gems alongside more main street films." We can call this a little bit of a coda to our Oscar coverage, which people keenly wait for every March or so, Carla. So, what should we be looking at for this year at Cannes? Because this is going to be a new batch of films, right? This isn't going to be the ones we already discussed.

ROBBINS:
Right. So, in preparation for our discussion and with the support of our wonderful researcher Sinet, I learned a lot about Cannes, including something about its anti-fascist history of the festival. So, I have to give you a little bit of that first, because it's really cool. So the first major International Film Festival was founded in 1932 in Venice. And in 1938, with the relentless rise of fascism, the Venice jury was pressured to award that main prize the Coppa Mussolini to a documentary rather than a feature film, Leni Riefenstahl's, Olympia, which is about the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. And unlike Triumph of the Will, Olympia was not overt Nazi propaganda, and it is a pretty extraordinary movie. But, Riefenstahl is undeniably Hitler's favorite filmmaker and an incredible propagandist. And the French art critic, Philippe Erlanger, who was there, I think was on the jury in Venice, was disgusted and returned home from Venice and campaign to create a film festival. And thus, Cannes was born.

That festival was due to open on September 1st, 1939. And according to the Cannes website, 2,000 invitations were sent out. And people were really excited. And, MGM even had an ocean liner floating in the Bay of Cannes stocked with stars from its stable, including Tyrone Power, and Gary Cooper, and Douglas Fairbank, and George Raff, and Norma Sheer, and Mae West on board. And that must have been a hell of a party. But before the opening ceremony, Germany invaded Poland on that very day and the festival was canceled. The official opening only came in 1946. And the 1939 winner Cecil B. DeMille's, Union Pacific, was only awarded in 2002. So, there's a lot of history in this, as well as lots of stars.

This year there are twenty-one films from thirteen countries in the running for the top prize, which is known as the Palme d'Or. And that list is called the so-called official selection. There are six women filmmakers on this list this year, which is a record. And, there are twenty-one films. This is too big and too diverse for me to handicap. But looking at some summaries, there are a few that particularly caught my eye. I am a total Wes Anderson fan. And, Asteroid City is on that list and it's about a convention of junior stargazers that is interrupted by an alien arrival. Anderson always has a great ensemble cast and this one includes Tom Hanks, and Edward Norton, and Jason Schwartzman, and Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, of course, and Scarlett Johansson. And this is the third Wes Anderson film to make it to the main competition, including Moon Rise Kingdom and the French Dispatch.

I'm also really interested in something, and I'm probably going to pronounce it incorrectly, because Spanish is my language, not Italian, it's La Chimera, by an Italian filmmaker, Alice Rohrwacher, which is about a group of archeologists selling stolen Etruscan artifacts on the black market and stars Isabella Rossellini. And, this filmmaker won the Grand Prix, which is the second prize in 2014 for a movie, The Wonders, which is about a family of beekeepers in Tuscany, which got very great reviews at the time. And one more that really intrigues me is something called Banel & Adama, by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, who is a French Senegalese film director, and this is her first feature film incredibly, and here she is competing for the Palme d'Or. It's set in a small village in northern Senegal. And it's supposed to be both a love story and a study of the sociology of a village where the order is broken when both members of this young couple and particularly the women break out of their traditional roles. So, there's a lot of really interesting movies to watch. I'm looking forward to it. 

And of course, there's a lot of other things going to go on in Cannes, lots of stars, lots of great fashion. You've got other competitions for younger filmmakers. And then, there are the very, very, very cool premieres. The two that I'm looking forward to are Jeanne du Barry, which is Johnny Depp's first major movie since he won a defamation trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard. That's going to be screened to an enormous amount of fanfare. And, these are the things you wouldn't expect for Cannes, but Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny starring Harrison Ford is going to have its premiere at Cannes. So as we like to say in my house, not just films, movies.

MCMAHON:
I like that Carla. And, our listeners should pause from going through all of our CFR content on Instagram to take a look at the Cannes. I'm sure there's going to be many reels coming out of Cannes in the week ahead. The only other film I would note, because it's based on a book by one of my favorite writers, David Grann, is Killers of the Flower Moon, which I believe is a Martin Scorsese film. And, eager to see how they've adapted that for the screen and whether or not as a film or a movie.

ROBBINS:
From my understanding of it... And maybe it's changed since then, from my understanding of it, it's almost four hours long.

MCMAHON:
That's fine with me. I love the book. But, might not do well in the public.

ROBBINS:
Although the Irishman went on forever. And, I loved it. Although, I'll admit, I did fall asleep for about forty-five minutes in the middle of it, but I did love it.

MCMAHON:
Well, that's our look at the world next week, including southern France. Here are some other stories to keep an eye on. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez meets Joe Biden at the White House. APEC trade Ministers meet in Detroit. And, Denmark hosts the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review while you're at it, and review the movies. We appreciate the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on cfr.org. Please note that opinions expressed on the world next week are solely those of the hosts, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang, with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to Sinet Adous and Rebecca Rottenberg for their research assistance. This is Rebecca's last week with us as our editorial podcast intern. We appreciate all the support she provided in the show and wish her luck in her future endeavors. Thanks so much, Rebecca. Our theme music is provided by Miguel Herrero and licensed under creative comments. This is Carla Robbins saying au revoir.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and happy viewing.