In what is now known as the “global election year” (involving more than 60 countries), local polls in Turkey — due on Sunday, March 31— are as important and impactful as any other. If anything, this is a fact both those hold power — President Erdoğan and the wide-scale alliance he assembled around him— and the opposition circles are in agreement. And, all eyes are on who wins Istanbul, where 11 million voters — 65 million in total — will have say on the country’s destiny.
Regardless of the outcome, crisis ridden Turkey will from the day after have seen more clearly the path ahead: either more consolidation of power in Erdoğan’s palace in the form of hard-core authoritarianism or a volatile limbo, with a scattered opposition, in chronic disunity, may maintain some vague hopes for a change through national elections in 2028.
Once more, despite the claims that he is somewhat weakened, Erdoğan enters the race with far more advantages than his contenders. Assymmetry in the showdown remains unchanged, largely in favour of Turkey’s strongman. In this campaign his AKP went even further, engaging even all the ministers and some governors in the propaganda machine.
His party seem to be bleeding, losing attraction, but Erdoğan may not care less: Following the attempted coup d’etat in 2016, he has succesfully injected a “super-presidential system” through the referendum in 2017, thereafter cemented a state structure by engineering a massive domination of Islamist and Ultra-Nationalist elements in buraucracy, subordination of critical segments of the judiciary and autonomous state institutions (such as the Supreme Election Board, Radio-TV Board and the Board of Judges and Prosecutors), as his administration deepened its control over the captured media.
The parliamentary and presidential elections in May last year, was therefore the final chance for the opposition to pull the brakes to Turkey irreversably shifting towards a “one-man regime”, an ultra-centralist rule, were the opposition and media allowed to exist, but only as a window dressing.
United around a “Table of Six”, the opposition led by the secular-Kemalist CHP had then raised the hopes very high amongst the voter segments in disagreement with “Erdoğan’s Way”, but Turkey’s rotten political culture came in between. Going around in circles with false smiles and handshakes, instead of reaching consensus based on sacrifice, the choreography then turned out to be a mess. Despite the hype of the “opposition” media, Erdoğan won, once more.
In the 10 months that passed since then, revealed the ugly face of the political class. While the trauma spread widely within the electorate, the “Table of Six” transformed into a chaotic boxing ring.
Existential crisis shattered the CHP, and nationalist ally, IYIP. As the opposition leaders spent the time at each other’s throats instead of focusing on the policies of Erdoğan. As a result, the unity was dissolved, with each party declaring to enter the local election race with their own candidates. Erdoğan could not hope for a more fertile political ground. For about a decade, his political opponents — alienated from their disgruntled voters — are his best enablers.
No wonder, then, the apathy” dominates the mood before Sunday’s elections. The voter in opposition is struck by a fatigue, fed up with politics, sulky and angry, in severe loss of a trust with parties. The undecided and protest votes in public surveys has shown a constant level of 20 plus percent, until last week.
In the previous local elections, which in Istanbul had ended with a narrow victory (some 20 thousand votes in difference) for Ekrem Imamoğlu, the charismatic figure of the CHP, there was a massive mobilisation of “ballotbox volunteers”, the civil observers. About 200 thousand people had been present to check on the election safety. But this time, NGO “Oy ve Ötesi” (Vote and Beyond) declared a few days ago, only about 30 thousand people showed intent to watch the election stations. As we in the media have been noting, the public interest for following the “political news” hit rock bottom.
Once more, Istanbul remains the epicenter of the election results. The race is, as the best bet, neck-to-neck. Will Imamoğlu be able to keep his mayorship? He has many challenges. Discord within the CHP itself is one, there are rumours that certain flanks of the party (CHP is notorious as a base for web of intrigues) will refrain from engaging for him. He must also hope for the votes of the IYIP on the right and, more importantly, DEM Party’s Kurdish voters to secure a victory.
This is where the most delicate part of the race takes place. In the previous polls he had gained roughly about half of the IYIP and DEM votes. Now, Meral Akşener, the leader of IYIP, is at loggerheads with the CHP, confronting Imamoğlu acrimoniously (real reasons unknown).
And the leadership of pro-Kurdish DEM Party shows deep cracks on whether to vote tactically for him (as before) or back its own co-candidates, Meral Danış Beştaş and Murat Çepni. An unprecedented paradox, indeed. The divide became obvious when prominent figures such as the jailed Selahattin Demirtaş, Leyla Zana and Ahmet Türk have sent messages to vote for their own party, and not Imamoğlu; arguing that, if anybody, it is after all Erdoğan who can relaunch a new Kurdish peace process.
They seem to be backed by the grassroots which, according to some surveys, feel neglected by the opposition, although they voted tactically in the local elections in 2019 and also in the national elections last year. “Let’s profile ourselves clearly as a party and vote for our candidates everywhere” has been the message from DEM voters for some months now.
But others, such as the current co-chairwoman, Tulay Hatimoğulları and a Sezai Temelli, a former leader, push for tactical voting. In the background, as the Kurdish analyst Vahap Coşkun argues, looming divergence is between the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan; and the PKK command in Iraq’s Qandil mountains — the latter standing firm on “making Erdoğan lose the elections”.
All this reveals, in a birds-eye view, deepening of the political crisis in Turkey. Further turmoil is in the horizon. If Erdoğan wins Istanbul, he will have conquered the biggest bastion of resistance and hope, feeling secured for a further consolidation of power, with the potential of imploding the conservative opposition. If Imamoğlu ends up as victorious, a furious Erdoğan is expected to tighten the screws over him (there are court cases and other accusations on Imamoğlu) and accelerate overall oppression. Regardless of the result in Istanbul, especially the CHP, DEM and IYIP, as the trio of meaningful opposition flank, may find themselves in fierce infighting, facing changes or, decline.