Turkish voters began voting on Sunday March 31 to choose their mayors, a local ballot with a test value for the Erdogan administration which intends to take back the "national treasure", Istanbul.
The first offices opened in the east of the country at 7 a.m. (4 a.m. GMT), AFP correspondents noted, while in the west, and in large cities like Ankara and Istanbul, operations were to start an hour later.
At 70, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threw all his stature as a statesman into the campaign, plowing his country of 85 million inhabitants alongside the candidates of his party, the AKP (Islamo-conservative), holding up to four meetings a day and sharing iftar every evening, the meal to break the Ramadan fast.
He thus personally invested alongside his candidate for Istanbul, an uncharismatic former minister, Murat Kurum, whose portrait generally appears alongside his on electoral banners.
It is a question of washing away the affront of 2019 by dislodging the outgoing mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, an opposition figure who took away the main and richest city of the country and who, in the event of his reappointment on the banks of the Bosphorus, will figure of favorite to take the head of the State in 2028.
Again on Saturday, the day before the election, Mr. Erdogan held three meetings in Istanbul, the former Constantinople described as a "jewel" and a "national treasure", of which he was mayor in the 90s before conquering power.
Once again he insisted on the shortcomings, according to him, of Mr. Imamoglu, whom he portrayed as an ambitious man with little concern for his city, a "part-time mayor" obsessed with the presidency.
“Istanbul has been abandoned to its fate over the past five years. We aspire to save it from disaster,” he said before going to pray at the Hagia Sophia mosque.
At the end of the week, the polls gave the advantage to the outgoing mayor. In May 2023, however, they predicted a defeat in the presidential election for Mr. Erdogan, who had nevertheless been re-elected with 52% of the votes.
Erdogan towards a fourth term?
Unlike the municipal elections of 2019, the opposition this time leaves in dispersed order: the CHP (social democrat), its main party, did not manage to obtain the support of other parties, whether in Istanbul in favor of M .Imamoglu, or elsewhere in the country.
The pro-Kurdish Dem party, in particular, is going it alone at the risk of favoring the ruling party, itself threatened in places by the rise of the Islamist Yeniden Refah party.
The CHP, however, wants to believe in it: "We are going to achieve a big victory tomorrow, which will not be anyone's defeat," assured Saturday the president of the party, Özgür Özel, strolling through Izmir, a city in the west of the country which should remain won over to the opposition, just like Ankara, the capital.
“In the end, Turkey will win,” he insisted.
In Istanbul, Mr. Imamoglu for his part made sure to stay on local issues, listing his achievements and those to come.
In a country faced with 67% official inflation over twelve months and the decline of its currency (from 19 to 31 pounds to the dollar in one year), voters may be tempted to give the advantage to the opponents of the head of the the state.
For observers, the traditionally high level of participation will play a determining role. Particularly in Istanbul if voters turn out in smaller numbers to support Mr. Imamoglu.
“If Imamoglu manages to hold on, he will have won his battle within the opposition to establish himself” as leader for the next presidential election, notes Bayram Balci, researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research (Ceri) -Sciences-Po in Paris.
But conversely, "if he manages to return to Istanbul and Ankara, Erdogan will see this as an encouragement to modify the Constitution to run again in 2028" and run for a fourth term, he notes.
The 61 million voters are called to the polling booth to choose their mayor but also, in large cities, municipal councilors, district mayors and muhtars (neighborhood leaders). In Istanbul, the ballot paper is approaching a meter in length.
Offices will close at 5 p.m. (2 p.m. GMT) in the west and the first significant results are expected at the end of the day.
With AFP
The France 24 summary of the week
invites you to look back at the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application