Elections are the most inclusive “opinion polls,” and they have immediate, real-life effects. With several days to go before the March 30 municipal elections in Turkey, I talked with a number of candidates, volunteers and campaign managers.

Most of the campaign workers belong to the opposition parties, but to my surprise, I observed that they are under the spell of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish leader has been indoctrinating all of us to believe the ballot box is the panacea for everything wrong in the Turkish political system: Corruption, you say? Take us down through the ballot box. Civil liberties, you complain? Remove us from power through the ballot box.

Under Erdogan’s spell, most of the opposition seem to be harboring the same illusion: Elections will be the end of Erdogan. We will bury Erdogan in the dustbin of history through the ballot box. The emotion is at a climax among the opposition’s young and passionate campaigners.

When I uttered, “But Erdogan is not on the ballot,” the room went silent. Not a pleasant moment. I felt the same way when I asked a room of dedicated Justice and Development Party (AKP) volunteers debating the conspiracies of traitors, “When was Erdogan not under a coup threat?”