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It's an election campaign in Turkey. Local elections will take place across the country on Sunday. But the greatest attention is focused on the metropolis of Istanbul, the largest and most important city in the country, of which Erdoğan once said: "Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey."
Özlem
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, DER SPIEGEL:
»Istanbul is of course particularly important for Erdoğan because his own political career began in the city
.
And he just lost the city or his party lost the city in the last election in 2019 to the current mayor and there is still a score to settle.
«
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to prevent his AKP party from suffering another defeat like in 2019. And so he does everything he can to support the AKP candidate Murat Kurum, like around 600,000 people here at an event at Istanbul airport.
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»
While listening, I had the feeling that someone had reached a certain age. He was no longer the strong, omnipotent Erdoğan he once was. And his protégé, his candidate Murat Kurum, is of course selected, he wouldn't be a candidate if Erdoğan hadn't decided that way, but he doesn't stand out very much with charisma or a special way of speaking. You can't say that
."
His opponent, the incumbent mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu from the CHP, is completely different. At 52, he is almost 20 years younger than Erdoğan. He shows his strength in the election campaign. He creates closeness to the people that the all-powerful President has long since lost.
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, DER SPIEGEL:
»İmamoğlu is a thoroughbred politician who somehow came out of nowhere. When he took office in 2019, a lot of people, including our Turkish colleagues, had to google him: Ekrem, who? And then it turned out that he had already been the district mayor in a district for a term and his party, the opposition CHP, was obviously looking for candidates and did a survey among the members about what kind of candidate Istanbul needed. And the criteria that emerged were very simple: people wanted someone who was young. People wanted someone who came from the Black Sea coast and they wanted someone who did good governance, who was successful in what they did and didn't waste money. The party somehow came up with İmamoğlu because he was very, very popular in his district and did a good job.
Experts assume that whoever wins Sunday's election in Istanbul will have a decisive influence on Turkey's fate in the coming years.
Özlem
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, DER SPIEGEL:
"
The
Polls are currently predicting a neck-and-neck race. What it will be like on election day, surveys are snapshots, how many people can be mobilized in the last week is another question. People always say, this is Turkey, anything is possible. We will see."