When the Turkish opposition inflicted what was perhaps the worst defeat of his political career on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan five years ago, the key to success lay in their unity: the secular forces and the largest Kurdish party joined forces in the 2019 local elections. The result of the premiere was impressive. Erdogan’s opponents won in almost all major cities. The triumph in Istanbul was particularly significant. For the first time in a quarter of a century, Erdogan’s Development and Prosperity Party (AKP) was pushed out of power in the metropolis on the Bosporus.
Erdogan’s career had begun here, and people wondered whether it would now also end here. Didn’t the president himself say that whoever ruled Istanbul ruled Türkiye? The metropolis of 16 million is a reflection of Türkiye with all its rifts and contradictions. The theory at the time was that anyone who succeeds in gathering a majority behind them here will also succeed at the national level. As we all know, things turned out differently. Although a broad alliance of government opponents was formed again, their candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, was defeated in the presidential elections last May. The incumbent, Erdogan, won clearly and is as firmly in the saddle as ever.
Local elections took place again today and once again the most important decision will be made in Istanbul. Erdogan has left no doubt that he wants to overcome the blow of 2019 and retake his hometown.
The Kurds’ departure was even more consequential. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is now called the DEM party after two renamings due to a ban, had refrained from fielding candidates outside of its homeland in southeastern Türkiye in the last elections. Instead, the country’s third strongest force called on its supporters to elect the respective representative of the opposition alliance.
Now, however, the pro-Kurdish party was running again with its own candidates, including in Istanbul. The role of kingmaker is only worthwhile if it is rewarded with political influence, explained Tülay Hatimogullari Oruc, the co-chair. There was great outrage over the CHP’s behavior in the presidential election. Erdogan has recognized that this can be an advantage for him. He is conspicuously reticent about making general denigrations, as in previous election campaigns. Of course, that doesn’t make the president a beacon of hope for the Kurds. The past weighs too heavily for that.
Initial results show a trend in favor of the incumbents in Istanbul and Ankara. After almost 20 percent of the votes were counted, the incumbent mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, received 49.6 percent of the vote, while his main opponent Murat Kurum, supported by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had 41.6 percent, state media reported. In Ankara, Mayor Mansur Yavas had a share of 56.3 percent after counting 12.4 percent of the votes.
The election is an expression of great dissatisfaction with the high inflation of around 67 percent. The minimum wage, for which more than half of the working population works, is no longer even enough to feed a family healthily, let alone pay for rent and clothing.
When the first results were announced two and a half hours after the polls closed, the website of the official Anadolu news agency showed a map with the entire west of the country colored red. Red is the color of the opposition CHP party. Then the agency’s server crashed.
Unlike the previous local elections, the CHP is heading for victories not only in coastal provinces and metropolises, but also in some conservative provinces in central Anatolia, which were previously considered Erdogan’s voter base. The local elections therefore have the potential to upend Türkiye’s political landscape.
From the AKP’s point of view, the successes of the New Welfare Party are also worrying. Its chairman Fatih Erbakan is the son of former Erdogan mentor Necmettin Erbakan, who is one of the forefathers of the Islamist movement in Türkiye. The party only broke away from an alliance with the AKP shortly before the local elections and appeals to the same groups of voters. Erbakan pushed Erdogan ahead of him with demands for pension increases and a cessation of trade with Israel. In the previous AKP strongholds of Sanlıurfa and Yozgat, a victory for the New Welfare Party seemed possible.
The election was overshadowed by allegations of manipulation. The Kurdish DEM party accused the government of bringing tens of thousands of soldiers and police officers from outside to vote in Kurdish-majority areas in the southeast of the country. The presidential office contradicted the allegations. The security forces are registered in the respective electoral districts. For security reasons, they were driven to the polling stations in buses.
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