After winning the presidency and his party with a parliamentary majority. This is how Erdogan plans to retake Istanbul in local elections

ISTANBUL — As soon as the results of the second round of the presidential elections were decided last Sunday evening, the winning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed his readiness for a new election campaign, with the aim of restoring the Istanbul municipality in the local elections scheduled for next 2024, highlighting the psychological impact of the results of the general elections in the competition for the highly symbolic city.

The Turkish president addressed his supporters who gathered in the Uskudar district of Istanbul to celebrate his victory after the release of the non-final results, saying, "We are lovers of Istanbul, with it we began our march and with it we will continue," and vowed in his first speech to the crowds on the eve of the elections to win the local elections in 2024.

Local elections are of great interest in the country among political parties, as the civil administration chosen in these elections is no less important than the political administration from the point of view of politicians.

The upcoming 2024 is scheduled to witness the holding of local elections, which are repeated every 5 years, where citizens choose mayors, municipal council members and mayors.

While some Turkish provinces are historical strongholds of specific parties and therefore receive attention from the parties that run them, others have greater importance that makes competition for them more intense between the government and opposition camps, such as Istanbul and Ankara.

The 2019 elections saw a relative rise for opposition parties and a decline for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), after the latter lost the mayorship of Istanbul, Ankara and a few other cities to CHP candidates.

Why Istanbul?

Istanbul is important for all parties, like other major cities in the country, but it is even more important for the AKP for many reasons, according to Celal Demir, a former local official and head of Turkey's Media House.

Demir enumerated – in a statement to Al Jazeera Net – the reasons for the exceptional importance of Istanbul from the point of view of the ruling party, stressing that it is a major city that includes about a fifth of Turkish voters throughout the country.

The former Turkish official pointed out that Istanbul is a global city, and it also enjoys great historical and spiritual symbolism in the conscience of the Turkish people, in addition to its distinctive geographical location, as it is the only city that extends over two continents, and it enjoys a major economic position based on being the most important commercial center in the country.

In addition to the above, Erdogan's presidency of the Istanbul municipality between 1994 and 1999 witnessed the beginning of his political career, and politicians recently used a phrase attributed to Erdogan himself that "whoever enjoys Istanbul gets Turkey", which reflects the importance of municipal elections in the major city for the Turkish president.

Victory Atmosphere

Celal Demir believes that the recent presidential and parliamentary elections will have an impact on the upcoming local elections, especially psychologically, considering that the success of Erdogan and his party in parliament and the presidency will enhance their image among the Turkish voter in terms of strength and efficiency.

For his part, Turkish writer and political researcher Anas Yelman said that the urgency of the AKP election campaign in Istanbul, as shown by the Turkish president's speech in the city after his election victory, indicates Erdogan's desire to "exploit the atmosphere of historic victory" in order to regain the city it lost in 2019.

Yelman says to Al Jazeera Net, "Erdogan reads the people well. The 2023 elections were one of the most important obstacles that stood in front of him and he was able to overcome them, so he does not want to dispel the atmosphere that they created."

The political researcher pointed out that the "Istanbul Canal" project is among the reasons why the goal of restoring the city administration in the upcoming local elections is vital for Erdogan.

He explained that a giant project of this size requires a great deal of financial and logistical support to complete, and the Istanbul Municipality has a very important role in meeting this need.

Istanbul is a major city with nearly a fifth of Turkish voters across the country (Al Jazeera)

Betting on experience

Yelman believes that the ruling party's expertise in local administration, its credible role in tackling the effects of the devastating earthquake and its urban transformation plans will be pillars of its election campaign through which it seeks to convince voters in Istanbul, which is already at risk of a devastating earthquake, to vote for it.

He says that these files have already begun to be worked on before the parliamentary and presidential elections, pointing to the projects of the state company "Toki", which is implementing the largest project in the history of the republic to build social housing, in addition to the "half of us" campaign, which means that the government will cover half of the expenses of urban transformation in the projects being implemented in Istanbul, to encourage residents to engage in them.

In terms of transportation and infrastructure, metro lines will not be absent from the AKP's election campaign, according to the Turkish researcher, who warned that "the various metro lines that are operated through the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure fall within the scope of the government's strategy in this context."

Opposition Links

According to Yelman, although services and promises to improve them come first for local elections, the government is expected to stick to its political rhetoric that reminds voters of the opposition's alliance with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is accused of links to Turkey's "terrorist" Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The Turkish writer considered that the strategy of "linking the opposition to terrorism" succeeded in the 2023 elections, pointing out that the retirement of the former Kurdish leader of the Peoples' Democratic Party Selahattin Demirtas, who is imprisoned on terrorism-related charges, comes within the framework of the opposition camp's preparations for the upcoming local elections, by hiding the effectiveness of the Kurdish party in the opposition scene, after learning the lesson from the recent elections.

Filling the gap

Despite the Turkish president's victory in the presidential election, Istanbul's vote for opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu could be a negative indicator of voters' attitudes in the local elections, observers say.

While the AKP's vote in the parliamentary elections fell to 35%, Kılıçdaroğlu received 3.5% more votes in the presidential election than Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul.

Anas Yelman says Erdogan wants to enter the Istanbul elections with a figure of great weight among the general public, capable of attracting more votes, closing the 3.5% gap.

He told Al Jazeera Net that there are informal deliberations stating that the names put forward to run for the presidency of the Istanbul municipality: Vice President of the parliamentary group of the Justice Party Tawfik Göksu, and the mayor of Uskudar Hilmi Turkmen, as well as Ministers Murat Kurum and Mustafa Varank, while there is little chance that a national candidate is presented to get the votes of the nationalist opposition bloc in Istanbul.