Erdogan’s record of lies from his election speeches

Teyit.org, a fact-checking platform, has published on its website the lies told by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his propaganda speeches during the election process.

The verification platform Teyit, which has been analyzing the accuracy of questionable content published on the internet based on open sources since 2016, has compiled a list of lies used not only by Erdogan but also by the AKP in their propaganda.

According to the platform, President Erdogan’s claim that “the ‘current CHP’ was in power during the 1999 Marmara earthquake” is not correct. At the time of the earthquake in 1999, a coalition of the DSP, MHP, ANAP was in power, not the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the MHP, which is now in the same alliance with the AKP, was the deputy prime minister at the time of the earthquake. Erdogan’s other false claim was made in his election speech in Urfa on 16 April 2023. Although Erdogan claimed that Harran University in Urfa was built when he was in power, the Teyit platform confirmed that the university was founded in 1992. The AKP came to power in 2002. Erdogan gave similar misinformation by saying that Antalya Airport was built during the AKP era. According to the website of Teyit, Antalya airport was built in 1960.

President Erdogan also gave inaccurate information about the attendance at election rallies. Contrary to Erdogan, who said that one million 700 thousand citizens attended the May 7, 2023 Istanbul rally of the People’s Alliance, Teyit announced that at most 865 thousand people could fit in the area. The platform, which made calculations based on the photos taken during the rally, says that there were at least 520 thousand people in the area.

Another claim refuted by the platform was that Kilicdaroglu had made a video with PKK leaders. It was confirmed that the claim that Murat Karayilan, a member of the PKK Executive Committee, appeared in the campaign film prepared by the Nation Alliance was a lie. The film was shown during President Erdogan’s election rally and youth meeting in Istanbul. Sharing the video on Twitter, Kemal Kilicdaroglu made a statement about the film, saying it was black propaganda.