Türkiye: The opposition inflicts a heavy setback on Erdogan during the municipal elections

by Can Sezer and Burcu Karakas

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling AKP (Justice and Development) party was punished by voters on Sunday in municipal elections that reaffirmed the weight of the opposition and confirmed the status of Ekrem Imamoglu, given again victorious in Istanbul, as the future great rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This heaviest electoral setback for Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP in more than twenty years could herald changes in the very divided Turkish political landscape, while the head of state described the results as a “turning point”.

According to analysts, the AKP, whose results are lower than the polls, is paying for soaring inflation, the discontent of Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, the attractiveness of Ekrem Imamoglu beyond the electoral base secularist of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) from which he comes.

Read also…

“Those who do not hear the message of the nation end up losing,” Ekrem Imamoglu, 53, told thousands of cheering supporters late Sunday evening, as some in the crowd called for the resignation of Erdogan.

“Tonight, 16 million Istanbul residents sent a message to both our rivals and the president,” added the former businessman, who converted to politics in 2008, whom analysts now consider to be a likely major candidate for office. the presidency of the country.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in the 1990s was mayor of his hometown Istanbul, was heavily involved in the electoral campaign, while the vote was seen as revealing both his popularity rating and the resistance of the ‘opposition.

“We did not obtain the results we hoped for,” admitted the head of state, whose AKP aimed to regain control of Istanbul and Ankara, municipalities lost in 2019.

Speaking to supporters at the AKP headquarters in Ankara, he said the vote was “not an end but a turning point” for the ruling party which, he added, will benefit from it. lessons and “repair” any missteps.

Earlier in the evening, thousands of CHP supporters gathered elsewhere in the capital, waving Turkish and opposition party flags, for a speech by Mansour Yavas, the re-elected outgoing mayor. .

After counting more than 92% of the ballots in Istanbul, the largest city in Europe and economic engine of Turkey, Ekrem Imamoglu was credited with 50.92% of the votes against 40.05% for the AKP candidate , Mourat Kouroum, former minister of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

THE CHP GIVEN AT THE LEAD ON A NATIONAL LEVEL

If opinion polls suggested close results in Istanbul and possible defeats for the CHP across the country, partial results reported by the official Anatolia news agency show that the CHP is in the lead nationally, with almost a percentage point ahead, unheard of in 35 years.

These results also indicate that the AKP and its main ally, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), lost municipal seats in 19 major cities, notably in the industrialized northwest.

This is “the most severe electoral defeat” of Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to power in 2002, commented Mert Arslanalp, assistant professor of political science at Bogazici University in Istanbul.

Ekrem Imamoglu “demonstrated that he could convince beyond the deep socio-political divisions that define the Turkish opposition electorate, even in the absence of institutional support”, he added, while the he opposition alliance defeated in last year’s presidential election has since collapsed. “This makes him the biggest political rival of the Erdogan regime domestically.”

In 2019, Ekrem Imamoglu had already inflicted a bitter electoral setback on Recep Tayyip Erdogan by winning in Istanbul, then a stronghold of the AKP and its Islamist predecessors for 25 years. The CHP had also taken control of Ankara to the detriment of the ruling party.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, won a new term as Turkish president last year and retained a parliamentary majority with his nationalist allies, despite a years-long purchasing power crisis in the country.

Analysts said economic woes – inflation has reached nearly 70 percent and growth has slowed due to ultra-tight monetary policy – have prompted voters to punish the AKP this time around.

Some of the AKP’s traditional voters have also turned to the New Prosperity Party (YRP), which has adopted an even tougher stance than Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s toward Israel for the war in the Gaza Strip.

The main pro-Kurdish party, DEM, which supported Ekrem Imamoglu in 2019, unsuccessfully fielded its own candidate in Istanbul, with results appearing to indicate that many Kurds again voted for the incumbent mayor.

In the southeast of the country, with a Kurdish majority, the DEM confirmed its weight, winning ten provinces according to partial results.

Several incidents occurred during the day on Sunday, including armed clashes in the southeast leaving one dead and 11 injured.

(Reporting Can Sezer and Burcu Karakas, with Daren Butler, Ali Kucukgocmen and Bulent Usta in Istanbul, Ece Toksabay, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara; French version Jean Terzian)