New Delhi: Terming it as a “turning point”, Turkey’s longest-serving leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has accepted his party’s defeat in crucial local polls across the country, including in capital Ankara and his hometown Istanbul.
Incidentally, Istanbul was the launchpad for Erdogan’s political career when he became its mayor in 1994.
The polls were held nine months after Erdogan extended his two decades in power by bagging a presidential run-off election with over 52 percent of the vote.
However, Sunday’s municipal polls delivered a strong blow to Erdogan’s AK Party, which is Turkey’s predominant political outfit.
The strongman leader termed the results “a turning point, not an end”, telling his supporters at the party headquarters early Monday that Turkish democracy had proved its maturity again.
The country’s Opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), celebrated victories not just in key hubs like Istanbul and Ankara but in 36 out of the country’s 81 municipalities that went to polls. This, however, is not the first time that Erdogan’s party faced a major defeat in local polls.
Every five years, Turkey holds local elections on the last Sunday of March. In 2019, considered Erdogan’s worst electoral setback since coming to power, his party’s 25-year winning streak in Istanbul ended after Opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu won the mayoral race.
Imamoglu was re-elected as Istanbul mayor Sunday, defeating the ruling party’s candidate and former Environment and Urbanisation Minister, Murat Kurum.
Increasingly touted as the man who could end Erdogan’s reign, İmamoğlu, in a statement on X, called the recently held polls proof of the “resilience” of democracy amid “rising authoritarianism”. In the 2019 mayor race, İmamoğlu had beaten another political heavyweight, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
Today marks a pivotal moment not just for #Istanbul, but for #democracy itself. As we celebrate our victory, we send a resounding message to the world: the decline of democracy ends now. Istanbul stands as a beacon of hope, a testament to the resilience of democratic values in… pic.twitter.com/0CqJFu1LoF
— Ekrem İmamoğlu (International) (@imamoglu_int) April 1, 2024
‘Votes lost from pensioners’
Senior Turkish political analyst and commentator Rusen Cakir claims Erdogan’s party lost out on votes from pensioners, due to his controversial economic policies.
“It is certain that the AKP received 3 million fewer votes, especially the situation of pensioners, due to economic problems,” he wrote for independent Istanbul-based news outlet Medyascope.
In February, it was reported that Turkey’s annual inflation had soared to 67 percent. This was after years of Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies where the central bank continued to cut borrowing rates despite high inflation.
Erdoğan has in the past declared himself an “enemy” of interest rates, and believes high rates slow economic growth and fuel inflation.
That said, last June, Erdogan accepted his new finance minister Mehmet Simsek’s outlook on interest rates in Turkey, suggesting a return to standard macroeconomic policies. On Monday, after the recently held polls, Şimşek reiterated the government’s promise to reduce the country’s inflation to single digits by 2026.
‘Historic’ polls
In his analysis, Cakir said that Sunday’s polls were historic, as the ruling party lost 3 metropolitan, 12 provincial, 180 district and 77 town municipalities, despite bagging a province (Nevşehir) and 5 district municipalities for the first time.
Like Imamoglu, Mansur Yavas, the mayor of the capital, Ankara, retained his seat with a 25-point difference over his rival, results showed.
According to Omair Anas, an assistant professor of International Relations at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, the results of the Ankara mayoral race were expected.
“The victory of Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas was widely anticipated. The general perception of his performance as mayor is very positive. He comes from nationalist party background and easily connects with a wide range of supporters from conservatives to nationalists to secularists,” Anas, who is originally from New Delhi, told ThePrint over text.
“His victory was rarely surprising for the voters. However since Ankara is the capital city, the reelection of an opposition candidate has set the perception game much in favour of the opposition party CHP,” Anas added.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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