Your Friday Briefing: What to expect in Turkey’s runoff

Good morning. We’re covering this weekend’s runoff election in Turkey and the week in culture.

A Turkish election preview

Voters across Turkey will make a critical choice on Sunday between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The runoff election will be watched around the world for how it could shape the future of Turkey.

“Most people are operating under the assumption that Erdogan is going to win,” Ben Hubbard, our Istanbul bureau chief, told us. Erdogan came out ahead in the first round, secured a key endorsement and has been using the state to campaign even harder.

Here’s more from our conversation with Ben about the election.

Amelia: What would an Erdogan victory mean for the future of Turkey?

Ben: It likely means, in the big picture, a certain amount of consistency. Erdogan has been at the top of the heap — as prime minister for 11 years and as president for nine years — so he’s effectively been the most powerful politician in the country for 20 years. It’s unlikely that he is going to get re-elected and then drastically change course.

For domestic opponents, for political dissidents, for members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, there’s a lot of fear that some of the erosion of democratic norms that he has overseen is going to continue.

Turkey recently experienced 80 percent inflation. How would another Erdogan term affect its economy?

The economy is one of the biggest pending issues. For whomever wins this election, probably one of the top things on the to-do list is to figure out what to do with the economic situation.

In the run-up to the election, Erdogan was able to open the spigot and pour out a lot of money to keep sectors of society from feeling the full blow of inflation. Somebody is going to have to pay those bills eventually.

How would an Erdogan victory affect Turkey’s role on the world stage?

Internationally, there were many leaders and politicians — in the U.S. and in Europe — who would have loved to see him be defeated. They didn’t say it publicly. But there’s a feeling that, while he’s a partner and an ally with the U.S. in NATO, he’s always kind of a headache.

He is a member of NATO, but he frequently refers to Vladimir Putin as his friend. They meet often, and Erdogan declined to join the sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, and instead expanded trade ties with Russia.

Still, Erdogan has played this interesting broker role. He is this rare figure in NATO who meets regularly with the president of the enemy nation. He talks to Putin, and he also talks to Zelensky.

I would imagine that the response in Western capitals will not be one of joy but of: “OK, we’ll keep trying to manage this as we were.”

For more: Erdogan has reoriented Turkey’s national culture, promoting a nostalgic revival of the Ottoman past — sometimes in grand style, sometimes as pure kitsch, our critic at large Jason Farago writes.

Wagner says its troops are leaving Bakhmut

Days after claiming victory in Bakhmut, the founder of the Wagner paramilitary group said that his fighters were withdrawing to recover and to repair their weapons and equipment. He said they will be replaced by regular Russian soldiers.

The change could open a new phase of the fight for the city and show whether Russia can hold its hard-won ground. Ukrainian forces have advanced on the city’s outskirts and are preparing to launch a broader counteroffensive.

Related: Russia is using Soviet-era bombs on Ukraine. They are proving much harder to shoot down than faster, modern missiles, which Ukrainians have grown adept at intercepting.

China reels from overbuilding

Years of nonstop building in cities like Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, have created too much supply. The skyscrapers of vacant homes and offices are evidence of a countrywide problem: a real estate market reeling from years of overbuilding.

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THE LATEST NEWS

• A man killed three people in Nakano, a city in central Japan, before fleeing and shutting himself inside a home.
• Super Typhoon Mawar is gaining strength as it moves toward the Philippines, Taiwan and possibly Japan. Forecasters expect it to peak on Sunday.
• Two U.S. police officers used excessive force against two Australian journalists who were covering a George Floyd protest in June 2020, a U.S. investigation concluded.
• A U.S. Navy destroyer that sank during the Battle of Okinawa in World War II was discovered off the coast of Japan.

• The leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia was sentenced to 18 years in prison for helping to mobilize the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
• A man accused of having a direct hand in the killing of hundreds of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide was arrested in South Africa, where he’d been hiding as an asylum seeker.
• The police in London arrested a man who crashed a car into gates near the British prime minister’s office and residence.
• Germany’s economy, the largest in Europe, has slipped into a recession.

• Gustavo Dudamel will resign as music director of the Paris Opera in August, four years ahead of schedule. He said he was stepping down to spend more time with his family.
• Critics are buzzing about Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Disney’s remake of “The Little Mermaid” is dutiful and humorless, our critic writes in a review.

The Cambodian runner Bou Samnang plodded alone, dead tired, through heavy rain in a race this month at the Southeast Asian Games. She finished last by a wide margin — but she finished.

She might have remained a footnote, but after a video of her perseverance went viral, she became an unexpected national hero.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

There was nobody like Tina Turner

The singer, who died on Wednesday at 83, brought her singular electricity to songs about survival, freedom and bravery.

“For seven decades of making music, it all sizzled in her,” our colleague Wesley Morris writes in an appraisal. “That energy. It shot from her — from her feet, thighs, hands, arms, shoulders, out of her hair, out of her mouth.”

Wesley and Jenna Wortham re-upped a 2021 episode of the “Still Processing” podcast that was entirely devoted to Turner, exploring how she reclaimed her voice, her image and her spirituality. You can also listen to Tina Turner’s 11 essential songs.

In Australia, people remembered her by dancing the Nutbush.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

To make pastillas de leche, the chewy Filipino candies, you typically simmer milk for hours. Here’s a faster way.

In “Fatherland,” Burkhard Bilger confronts his family’s Nazi past.

A flight attendant shared 12 etiquette rules for airplane travel. (Shoes can come off; socks stay on.)

Here are practical ways to be more mindful about your social media use.

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Praiseful poems (four letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a lovely weekend! — Amelia and Justin

P.S. Caira Blackwell is a mattress tester for Wirecutter. She told CBS that she has a dream job: “I sleep for a living.”

“The Daily” is about a Times investigation into political fund-raising.

We welcome your feedback. You can reach us at briefing@nytimes.com.

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