Following the news that 72% of Turkish Belgians voted for incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Zuhal Demir of the Flemish nationalist N-VA party wants to strip the dual nationality of Turkish people in Belgium.
Turks abroad have been allowed to vote in Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections since 2014. This year, there were about 135,000 Turks eligible to vote in Belgium. Of those, 85,000 of them cast a vote and 72% of them voted for Erdoğan's conservative nationalist AK Party.
"Erdoğan is much more popular here than in Turkey: 72% of Turks here voted for him. The European Turks are a form of electoral doping," Demir said on Monday on VRT's 'Terzake' programme. "The only way to stop the indoctrination of Turks here is to make it impossible to vote for Erdoğan."
What surprised her is that many of the Turks in Belgium who voted for Erdoğan's authoritarian regime are second or third-generation immigrants who have no intention of living in Turkey.
"If Erdoğan goes on the warpath, it is not the lives of the Flemish Turks that are at stake. They will be safe in their Flemish bed," Demir said. "Let it go: abolish dual nationality or reduce it to a symbol without the right to vote."
Erdoğan traditionally does well with Turks living abroad, especially those in Western Europe; the percentage of votes for him from Turkish people in Western Europe is much higher than in Turkey itself. In mainland Turkey, he received just under half of the vote, meaning a second round of elections will be organised.
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Demir – who herself has Turkish-Kurdish roots but renounced her Turkish nationality in 2017 – stated that she believes it is "no longer of this time" for people in certain professions (such as judges or ministers) to have dual nationality, as their loyalty should lie in Belgium.
"Still, some kind of symbol should be possible, but without the right to vote in Turkey," she said. "I do not think it is normal that people should have a say about democracy in Turkey while they do not have to live there."
