Istanbul municipality candidate in the upcoming elections, Murat Kurum (center), speaking during the meeting to announce the Justice and Development Party candidate (Anatolia Agency)
Turkey is preparing for high-stakes local elections at the end of this month, the results of which will not only reshape the balance of party power at the level of local administrations, but will also re-engineer domestic politics on a large scale. Although the elections will not pose a threat to the current presidential term of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they will play a prominent role in determining the future of Erdogan’s leadership on the one hand, and on the other hand they will test whether the opposition will maintain what remains of the power it has gained since the last local elections in 2019.
Although Erdogan said earlier this month; The current elections are the last that he will run - indicating that he will not run for the presidency again after the end of his term in 2028 due to constitutional restrictions - and officials in the ruling party, such as Bekir Bozdag, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, hinted at the possibility of holding early general elections before the end of Erdogan’s term to make way for... He has the opportunity to run for office again. Raising debate about early elections and the future of Erdogan's leadership ahead of the local elections provides a glimpse into the potentially significant implications of their results for domestic politics.
Given that the most important competition in these elections is for the leadership of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city in terms of population and political weight, it will be pivotal in the process of re-engineering internal politics after March 31.
For Erdogan, his party regaining control of Istanbul is essential for his leadership to continue recovering from the damage it has suffered since losing the city and some other major cities in 2019.
As for the Republican People's Party, its retention of control over Istanbul is of great importance at the party level, its future role in political life, and at the level of the future of the most powerful figure in the opposition, Ekrem Imamoglu.
Ironically, the debate over early general elections began to be raised on both fronts by the ruling party and the opposition Republican People's Party, for different goals.
While the Republican People's Party is counting on a major victory in the local elections to push for early general elections after that, the Justice and Development Party is seeking a victory that builds on it in order to pave the way for its immediate goal of changing the constitution, and its long-term goal of the option of early elections. Which will be designed to make room for Erdogan to run for president again.
However, it is by no means conceivable that an early general election scenario will materialize in the foreseeable future independent of local election results; For multiple reasons, the most important of which is that this option will not be on the agenda of the ruling coalition until a short period before the end of Erdogan’s term, in addition to the fact that the economic recovery plan does not tolerate more political uncertainty before its completion. Also, holding early elections without a breakthrough in the current economic crisis may lead to adverse results for Erdogan.
Since the Justice and Development Party came to power more than two decades ago, local elections did not assume this great importance at the level of public policy until after the 2019 elections.
The reasons for this are not limited to the fact that the 2019 elections constituted the first electoral defeat for the ruling party in major cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, but rather because they created a new era of party politics represented by the formation of an alliance between the two largest opposition parties, the “Republican People’s” and “Good” parties, before In the 2023 elections, it will develop into a broad coalition that includes six opposition parties in addition to the Kurdish “Equality and Peoples’ Democracy” party, in addition to the emergence of Imamoglu, whose victory as mayor of Istanbul at the time was seen as the beginning of his political ambition to reach the presidency of the republic.
Although the high assessments built on the 2019 elections collapsed after the opposition failed to overthrow Erdogan’s rule in last May’s elections, the results of the upcoming local elections will determine whether some of these assessments are still realistic.
The fact that the political environment in which the March elections will be held is radically different from the environment that accompanied the 2019 elections increases the risks for the Republican People’s Party and opposition parties in general, which makes its potential effects on the state of the opposition, in general, and on its various parties, strong. To the point that it may re-engineer the opposition's partisan politics.
On the one hand, the opposition parties will run in the March elections without a coalition, as in 2019 and 2023. On the other hand, the two largest components of the former opposition "Nation" coalition (the Republican People's Party and the Good Party) are now in a state of intense hostility, and both are witnessing internal crises and conflicts at the leadership level.
This situation certainly undermines the chances of the Republican People's Party to maintain its control over major municipalities, such as Istanbul and Ankara, even as it replaces its previous partnership with the Geyid Party with an electoral alliance with the Kurdish Equality and Peoples' Democracy Party.
As for the expected effects of the elections on the Republican People's Party, as it is the largest competitor to the ruling coalition, they will be on two levels. The first relates to the internal situation of the party after the change it brought about at the level of its leadership after the elections last May. It goes without saying; A CHP victory will strengthen Ozgur Ozil's leadership of the party, and vice versa. A possible defeat may also pave the way for the party's former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to try to return to the party's leadership.
The second level concerns the fate of Akram Imamoglu. It is not an exaggeration to say that Imamoglu is the most important element in these elections. If he succeeds in remaining in his position, he will strengthen his influence as shadow leader of the Republican People's Party and will support his ambitions to run for the party in the next presidential elections in 2028, or in the scenario of early general elections, and vice versa.
These elections are no less important for the Republican People's Party than they are for the Good Party. Since the latter will run for the first time since its founding in the first election independently from the Republican People’s Party, the elections on March 31 will constitute a test of the extent to which its leader, Meral Akşener, is able to show that her party is capable of maintaining its status as the second largest opposition party without relying on its former partner. .
If she succeeds in doing so, she will strengthen her party’s position in the internal political equation as a third alternative to the traditional partisan duo represented by the “Justice and Development” and “Republican People’s” parties, and will become a significant party in the upcoming presidential elections.
Also, the failure of the Al-Jadeed Party to maintain its voting bloc in these elections may lead to further internal attrition, whether at the leadership level or at the grassroots level, which constitutes an existential threat to it. This existential threat will reshape the national situation in political life.
Finally, the potential effects of the March elections on the Kurdish “Equality and Peoples’ Democracy” party will remain less severe compared to the “Republican People’s” and “Good” parties, but it also faces a decisive test to restore its popular base, part of which it lost in the 2023 elections for many reasons, although Chief among them is his alliance with the Republican People's Party.
Therefore, the party’s success in achieving its winning criteria in these elections, which is to restore its representational momentum to the Kurdish political situation, will determine its future influence in the dynamics of internal politics.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.