The evaluation of the Victory Party's refugee policy within the context of perception management

Perception management in politics is one of the most popular topics in recent times. However, its popularity does not mean that its applicability in the political arena is easy. Considering that there are 130 political parties in Turkey according to the records of the Court of Cassation, the fact that a single party has won the elections and has been in power since 2002 shows that the subject requires professionalism to implement. The issue of asylum-seekers is another popular issue that has come to the fore recently. However, its popularity does not mean that it is easy to solve. After 2010, the Republic of Turkey faced an unprecedented influx of migrants, which brought with it serious political, economic and social problems. This situation paved the way for the emergence of a political party that positioned anti-immigration at the institutional level in Turkish politics. In this sense, Zafer Party represents a first in Turkish politics. Thanks to its political perspective on the asylum-seeker problem, Zafer Party has caught a wind in a short time and created an effective public opinion. The party policies put forward in this direction were identified with the opposition policies in the second round of 2023 elections. In this study, the asylum seeker policy of Zafer Party, which has an effective base in the public opinion, and the evaluation of this policy in the context of perception management are analyzed. The tweets of Zafer Party Chairman Ümit Özdağ on asylum seekers are analyzed and it is examined whether the discourses put forward through these tweets have the quality of perception management. In this direction, A. Teun van Dijk's critical discourse analysis method was preferred as a method, and semi-structured interview data with Zafer Party Chairman Prof. Dr. Ümit Özdağ was also used in the process of analyzing the tweets. In the study, which concludes that an effective perception management strategy was followed beyond a political success, the positioning of Zafer Party in politics was also analyzed from a broad perspective. Key Words: Perception Management, Politics, Political Communication, Refugee Question, Zafer Partisi, Umit Ozdag.