In the “global ballotbox year”, engaging more than half of the world population, local elections in Turkey are bigger than what they are. The result will likely give the final shape of the identity of its regime. Turkey’s strongman, Erdoğan, fully aware of its significance in terms of clearing the path for cementing his power, seems set for a final push.
On March 31, 65 million voters are expected to choose mayors and city councils in 81 provinces. But, no other part of the election will be more defining than the one about Istanbul. 11 million voters are concentrated here and, the city —with a population extending 16 millions mirroring all cultural divides — remains a microcosm of Turkey.
More over, Istanbul is the financial capital of the country. According to the official statictics, it stands for 31 % of the GDP (232 billion USD), and 50-54 % of the foreign trade. Its massive dynamic makes it an attractive stronghold for the main opposition CHP party to “defend”, or, in the eyes of President Erdoğan, to “reconquer”.
Istanbul has a supreme symbolic value, personally, for Erdoğan: It is here he is born, and here his unstoppable political march to absolute power had begun, in 30 years ago. Thus, the slogan of his party for the polls: “Istanbul, Once More!”.
In short, Istanbul will be battlefield for Turkey’s future course.
Will this one be an easy fight for Erdoğan “to take the city back”? All the signs are, it will be. As he is in top gear to lead the battle in person, the entire opposition bloc is decisively set on a “collective suicide” mood.
A rewind to May last year, may shed light on why: Preceding to the presidential and parliamentary elections, then, the six-party opposition bloc —the so-called “Nation Alliance” (“Table of Six”) — had kept the hopes high for those who wanted to vote out Erdoğan.
Yet, despite a partisan, “militant” opposition media standing behind, its choreography was marred by a series of erratic mistakes, displaying the typical features of Turkish political culture: Hidden agendas, utilitarianism, stabs-in-the back, demagoguery, cacophony, and, unwillingness for consensus on the basics for democracy, and rule of law.
For the small conservative parties of the opposition, it seemed, it was all about snatching cynically as many seats as possible, and once they did, they stopped engaging for the presidential race’s contender, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was bitterly defeated to Erdoğan.
Since then, trauma and fury of the opposition voters have escalated - the undecided/protest votes are still as high as 20 percent. Gone was the so-called “historic consensus seeking”. The second half of 2023 was filled with episodes of the entire opposition at each other’s throats and, in the end, of dissolution of the alliance.
Turkish politics is now back to its destructive basics - each party having declared it is going its own way. Instead of joint candidates for mayoral posts, nearly every city has multiple ones.
Istanbul has currently seven candidates. (Possibly, more to come.) Latest to join the fragmented fight was the pro-Kurdish DEM (formerly YSP/HDP). It hae been for a long time in a dilemma: Inside sources say the party leadership remain “in talks” with both the ruling AKP and also the CHP - for offering support in return for political and legal favours. But, latest polls show that more than 70 % of DEM voters, want their party to join the race in Istanbul with its own candidate.
The disarrayed line-up of candidates is a nightmare for Ekrem Imamoğlu, current mayor of Istanbul, who is seen as the final hope of challenging Erdoğan. His party, the CHP, still is in a mire of infighting (despite a new leader) is less significant than basic numbers, that now don’t add up.
Imamoğlu had narrowly — by a 20 thousand vote margin— won in 2019 elections: his victory would not be possible if major chunks of the Kurdish voters, combined with the voters of the nationalist opposition party, IYIP. The latter has now copped out of the opposition alliance; its leader, Meral Akşener, furiously building a campaign strategy by targeting the CHP, and not Erdoğan. IYIP has a young, energetic candidate in Istanbul — Bugra Kavuncu — who is expected to attract about 5-6 percent of the vote. And if the DEM party nominates a contender — most likely this may be Başak Demirtaş, the wife of the jailed Kurdish leader, Selahattin Demirtaş — the pollster Metropoll calculates that at least 6 percent of the vote will go to her.
There are also others who may snatch votes from Imamoğlu - such as the candidate for the anti-migration, alt-right party, ZP, expected to do well.
The opposition in “Kamikaze Mode” is surely a melody to Erdoğan’s ears. In 2019 elections, the AKP’s candidate had gained up to 48,5 % of the vote in the city. “The People’s Alliance” (Cumhur) seems solid, with the MHP and a few other parties behind.
To add, Erdoğan controls High Electoral Board (YSK), Judges and Prosecutors’s Supreme Board (HSK), and two key media watchdogs - RTUK and BTK. No doubt he will have more than 90% of the media at his service, as happened in May 2023 elections. The so-called “mainstream” media has been known for its corrupt ownership structures for more than a decade. Both the state broadcaster and the Anatolian Agency are run strictly by the Palace -- leaving room only for a tiny, financially crippled and weak “opposition media”. This is an unprecedented asymmetry in influencing the public and the voters.
Erdoğan is visibly content, his self-confidence intact. He knows he is very close to a home run, thankful for the folly of the opposition. If he conquers Istanbul on March 31, he will have no more hurdles to finalize his regime design, most likely with a new, conservative, ultra-centralist constitution, that will place the republic in Central Asian formats. If victorious, he may attract conservative opposition parties in parliament like moths to a flame as well. He knows he will have four more years --until the next general elections, due in 2028 -- to act without a tangible, serious challenge.
If Ekrem Imamoğlu loses the city, it will be a serious blow for him, dashing hopes for the opposition, pushing its voters deeper into despair and, most likely, submission. The end is near, unless otherwise; and history is ready to write down the collective suicide as the most significant historic rupture, coinciding with the centennial of the republic - in convulsions, doomed for an ultra-autocratic regime.