In the weeks leading up to Turkey’s tightest elections in two decades, some of the 64 million eligible voters didn’t look to opinion polls for predictions about the outcome.
They turned to astrologers.
A few weeks ago, Dincer Guner, a renowned astrologer, carefully examined the birth chart of the Turkish republic (founded Oct. 29, 1923) and those of the presidential candidates. The result, he announced in a YouTube video, was clear: Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leading opposition candidate, would win the presidential vote, ending President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years in power.
Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s supporters rejoiced. But Mr. Guner is just one among a universe of celebrity astrologers giving forecasts in Turkey. They enjoy large followings on social media, offering hopes of clarity amid the uncertainty of nail-biting election polls, a crippling cost of living crisis and the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes in February that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and…
This article was written by Gulsin Harman and originally published on www.nytimes.com