Has Erdogan accidentally gifted the Turkish opposition with a catchy slogan?
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Social media in Turkey, and around the world, saw a sharp upsurge in a five-lettered word that emerged on Tuesday after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would leave power if the people voted so in the upcoming June elections.
“Should my nation say ‘tamam,’ then [I] will step aside,” Erdogan said during a televised speech to his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) weekly parliamentary convention in Ankara.
In many Western Asian languages, tamam means OK, and also “enough” in Turkish.
Shortly later, “tamam” took social media venues by a blitzkrieg with hundreds of thousands of Turkish users hash-tagging it to tell Erdogan “enough” of his now 15-year-long rule as the head of successive governments and an ambitious President vying for more power.
At the time of publishing this report, the trending word had been used over one million times on Twitter, with a majority of users typing it in all caps and with space in between letters to emphasize a growing discontent with what critics call rising authoritarianism in Ankara.
It almost instantly became a slogan for the opposition parties and their supporters, ideologically fractured but still united in demanding a departure of the incumbent President, who still enjoys widespread support among the country’s conservative majority.
People began flooding Twitter with jokes, political memes, and videos under the hashtag, as a group even flocked to the street shouting “tamam” in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district according to the privately-owned Halk TV.
Erdoğan'ın milletim #Tamam derse söylemine cevap gençlerden geldi. Kadıköy'de TAMAM yürüyüşü... pic.twitter.com/Kf6Wqxt6xf
— Ötekilerin Postası (@otekilerpostasi) May 8, 2018
Erdogan’s rivals in the presidential election on June 24, and possibly a run-off a fortnight later, embraced “tamam,” by posting it on their official social media pages.
The secularist opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem Ince, who is viewed as the most forceful challenger yet to confront Erdogan, tweeted “Vakit TAMAM!” a phrase that translates to “Time is UP!”
Vakit TAMAM!
— Muharrem İNCE (@vekilince) May 8, 2018
Others, including the ultra-nationalist IYI (Good) Party’s Meral Aksener, and Islamist Felicity Party’s Temel Karamollaoglu, joined him in the social media contagion.
T A M A M. #TürkiyeİYİOlacak
— Meral Akşener (@meral_aksener) May 8, 2018
T A M A M İnşallah!
— Temel Karamollaoğlu (@T_Karamollaoglu) May 8, 2018
One notable candidate, however, was absent from the enthusiasm revolving around the unexpected shared slogan for the opposition.
Official pages of pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) candidate Selahattin Demirtas remained silent due to his continued imprisonment.
Demirtas regularly communicates with his supporters via his lawyers who post messages from him.
HDP’s Co-leader Pervin Buldan, though, also tweeted “tamam.”
Benden de bir TAMAM gelsin..
— Pervin BULDAN (@PervinBuldan) May 8, 2018
It remains to be seen how effective the catchy word will serve Turkey’s opposition or whether it will indeed become a uniting factor in their bid to topple Erdogan who has won all elections he has entered since 2003.
Caught off guard, supporters of the Erdogan administration who are often portrayed as an army of trolls came up with an alternative hashtag “devam” that means “go on.”
That hashtag was trending above 100,000 when this report was published.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany