Blow for Erdogan in the local elections. The opposition achieves its biggest electoral victory and wins Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir

The Turks dealt a heavy blow to Recep Erdogan in the local elections. The opposition won the big cities, including the main economic center of the country. The mayor of Istanbul won by a wide margin. He received a new mandate. And the mayor of the capital Ankara retained his seat, with a 25-point margin over his opponent from the ruling party. And in Izmir, the country’s third city, the opposition reconfirmed its supremacy. Erdogan had wanted to take control of these large urban centers and invested heavily in election campaigns – especially in Istanbul, where he was mayor in the 1990s. He failed. The surprise was that he also lost some provincial capitals long held by his party. Overall, opposition Republicans scored 37 percent nationally, compared to 36 percent for the president’s party. It is their biggest electoral victory since the Erdogan era.

Recep Erdogan on Sunday recognized the historic victory of the opposition in the municipal elections which, in his opinion, represents a “turning point” for his camp, in power since 2002. The counting of almost 99% of the votes at the national level confirms that the Turkish opposition caused the AKP (Islamist-conservative) party of the head of state the biggest electoral disaster in the last two decades.

The main opposition party, the CHP (Social Democrat), claimed victory in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities, and captured many others, including Bursa, a large industrial city in the northwest that has been under AKP control since 2004. .

The announcement of the final results by the High Electoral Commission (YSK) expected during Monday will confirm these results, already integrated by the main stakeholders, including the head of state.

From the Ankara headquarters of his party and in front of a dejected, unusually silent crowd, the Turkish president promised to “respect the decision of the nation”.

Shortly before, the acting mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, announced his re-election as the head of Turkey’s largest city, which he won in 2019, without even waiting for the announcement of the official results. “Tonight, democracy will spread (…) in the markets, on the streets, in the universities, in the cafes and restaurants of Istanbul”, declared the mayor of the city in front of tens of thousands of supporters, very happy, gathered in front the town hall headquarters, under a wave of red Turkish flags and smoke bombs.

In Ankara, CHP Mayor Mansur Yavas, with a considerable lead, also claimed victory, declaring to an enthusiastic crowd that “those who were ignored sent a clear message to those who run this country.” “The voters chose to change the face of Turkey,” said CHP leader Ozgur Ozel.

In addition to Izmir (west), the country’s third city and CHP stronghold, and Antalya (south), where opposition partisans began celebrating victory in the streets, the main opposition formation made spectacular progress in Anatolia. She is leading the race in provincial capitals long under AKP control, according to near-final results that surprised observers.

President Erdogan, 70 years old, of which 21 years in power, got personally involved in the campaign, especially in Istanbul, the “jewel” of the country, its economic and cultural capital where he was mayor in the 1990s and which swung to the opposition in 2019. But the commitment of the head of state, who announced at the beginning of March that these elections are “the last for him”, was not enough.

“We need balance at least at the local level against the government,” Serhan Solak, 56, a resident of Ankara who came to vote for Mansur Yavas, the acting mayor of the CHP, told AFP, writes Agerpres.

AKP candidates, however, remained in the lead in several large cities in Anatolia (Konya, Kayseri, Erzurum) and the Black Sea (Rize, Trabzon), strongholds of President Erdogan, while the pro-Kurdish party DEM and -secured a comfortable advance in several large cities in the Kurdish-majority southeast, including Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of Turkey’s Kurds.

Throughout the campaign, President Erdogan attended daily rallies, enjoying unlimited airtime on public television, where his opponents were almost completely ignored. The defeat of his party (AKP, Justice and Development Party), especially in Istanbul, will have serious consequences. Clinging to the city, the president canceled the 2019 municipal elections, only to see Imamoglu win by a landslide in a runoff held three months later, suffering the biggest electoral defeat since he came to power in 2003 as the first – minister.

The mayor of Istanbul, subscribed to the podium of the favorite political personalities of the Turks, has since then continued to present himself as a direct rival of the head of state who described him as a “part-time mayor” devoured by his national ambitions. For many observers, once elected, the mayor of Istanbul will have an open path to the 2028 presidential elections.

The head of state, resigned, spoke about the “four years of work (…) that should not be wasted” until then, a way to exclude the possibility of early elections that would allow him to run again.

Publisher: GM

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