In a nationwide local vote on Sunday, Turks delivered President Tayyip Erdogan and his party their heaviest electoral setback, reinforcing Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the president’s main opponent and reaffirming the opposition’s political power.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) of Imamoglu retained Ankara and gained 15 additional mayoral seats across the country asa result of the majority of the votes being counted. Imamoglu was leading by ten percentage points in the mayoral contest in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey.
That was the biggest setback for Erdogan and the AK Party (AKP) in their more than 20 years in office, and it may herald a shift in the divisive political climate of the nation. Erdogan described it as a “turning moment” in a speech just after midnight.
He performed worse than opinion, as did the AKP, due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters, and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts said.
“Those who do not get the message of the nation will ultimately lose,” the 53-year-old Imamoglu declared late on Sunday to thousands of ecstatic followers, some of whom were yelling for Erdogan to step down.
“Today, sixteen million inhabitants of Istanbul sent a message to our opponents and the president,” declared the former businessman, who entered politics in 2008 and is currently being predicted to run for president.
Erdogan, who served as mayor of his native Istanbul in the 1990s, had run a vigorous campaign ahead of the municipal elections, which observers saw as a test of the opposition’s resilience and his level of popularity.
Speaking to assemblies assembled at the AKP headquarters in the nation’s capital, Ankara, Erdogan said his alliance had “lost altitude” in the eyes of the people and that it would take action to rectify the message.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticized for his handling of the recent election, with the CHP winning 50.92% of the vote in Istanbul, Europe’s largest city and the country’s economic engine. The CHP had previously defeated the AKP challenger Murat Kurum, but the results showed that the CHP led nationwide by almost 1% of the votes, a first in 35 years. This was Erdogan’s “severest election defeat” since coming to national power in 2002.
Imamoglu’s rise is attributed to his ability to reach across the deep socio-political divisions that define Turkey’s opposition electorate even without their institutional support. In 2019, Imamoglu dealt Erdogan a sharp electoral blow when he first won Istanbul, ending 25 years of rule by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors. However, in 2023, the president secured reelection and a parliamentary majority with his nationalist allies, despite a years-long cost-of-living crisis.
The economic strains, including nearly 70% inflation and a slowdown in growth brought on by an aggressive monetary-tightening regime, moved voters to punish the AKP this time. Imamoglu was reelected despite the collapse of the opposition alliance that failed to topple Erdogan last year. The main pro-Kurdish party, the DEM, fielded its own candidate under the DEM banner in Istanbul, but many Kurds put aside party loyalty and voted for him again.
Violence erupted earlier in the day, with clashes involving groups armed with guns, sticks, and stones in the southeast.
(Reuters)
