The municipal elections on Sunday March 31 inflicted their worst defeat on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamo-conservative party, the AKP, in power for 22 years.
Five things to know about this election which turned into a debacle for the presidential camp.
A local vote, national issues
By personally getting involved in the campaign for the municipal elections alongside his party's candidates, particularly in Istanbul which he wanted to reconquer at all costs, Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave this local election a national resonance.
More than the debacle of the AKP candidate in the megacity, the uncharismatic Murat Kurum, it is that of the head of state which was extensively commented on on Sunday.
His party failed to recapture major cities lost five years ago, including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, but it also lost provincial capitals in conservative Anatolia, long taken for granted.
Berk Esen, political scientist at Sabanci University in Istanbul, spoke of "the biggest electoral defeat of Erdogan's career", noting conversely that the CHP, the first opposition party, recorded "its best result since the 1977 elections.
The weight of the economic crisis
In addition to a possible weariness of returning to the polls ten months after the presidential and legislative elections of May 2023, voters, faced with a serious economic crisis, sanctioned the government: inflation of 67% over one year and the unscrewing of their currency make the daily lives of many middle-class Turks unbearable.
This disaffection was notably reflected in a decline in participation compared to 2019.
“The most important changes in Turkey occur when people can no longer carry out their daily lives, when they are no longer able to eat,” notes Ali Faik Demir, professor at Galatasaray University in Istanbul.
Istanbul and Ankara, strongholds of the opposition
“Whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey,” President Erdogan is wont to say. Byzantium then Constantinople, the multi-millennial megacity of 16 million inhabitants (nearly a fifth of the Turkish population) is both the jewel of the country with its prestigious past, its cultural capital located on the Bosphorus, but it is also the “treasure” in the strictest sense of the word, representing alone 30% of Turkey’s GDP.
"It's not easy to manage Istanbul, a city more populated than twenty countries in the European Union... It's a hub, a commercial, financial and cultural center. It's a country" , comments Aylin Unver Noi, professor at Haliç University in Istanbul, for whom “those who manage to lead this city and prove themselves there” then see their careers take off.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan experienced it, he who was mayor in 1994.
Read also Municipalities in Turkey: the shadow of Recep Tayyip Erdogan hangs over the battle of Istanbul
Passed into the hands of the main opposition party five years ago, the two largest cities in Turkey, held by the AKP (Justice and Development Party) and its Islamist predecessors between 1994 and 2019, saw their two outgoing mayors triumphantly re-elected on Sunday.
In Istanbul, the Republican People's Party (CHP, social-democrat) of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu won 26 of the 39 districts (compared to 14 in 2019), including some considered until now as conservative bastions, in particular the district of Üsküdar where the head of state has his residence.
In Ankara, the capital, the CHP won 16 of 25 districts, including Keçiören, the second most populous which had been ruled by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors since 1994.
The twilight of Erdogan?
In power since 2003 as Prime Minister, then as President since 2014, re-elected in 2018 and 2023, the Head of State, for whom this was his fifth municipal election, has braved many storms.
He survived the large opposition demonstrations in Istanbul in 2013, known as Gezi, which spread to 80 of the country's 81 provinces. Then to an attempted coup d'état in July 2016, followed by vast purges.
Also, does the collapse of his party signify the end of the head of state? Analysts had already announced the twilight of the "reis" in 2019 after the loss of Istanbul and Ankara in the municipal elections. However, he managed to stay in power, re-elected to the presidency in May 2023 with 52% of the vote.
This time, he suggested that these elections would be his “last”.
Bayram Balgi, researcher at CERI-Sciences Po in Paris, is convinced: "He is capable of surprising and deciding to end his career. A way to go out in style, while remaining faithful to his vision of Islam and his religious convictions that nothing is eternal on this earth.
Imamoglu president?
The mayor of Istanbul, reappointed to the town hall, is more than ever the "boss" of the opposition: he has the stature, the popularity, the media savvy and above all, the appetite for conquest, up to the presidency . This is something his adversaries within his party do not fail to reproach him for, who accuse him of caring more about his career than the affairs of his city.
Above all, Ekrem Imamoglu is in the sights of the authorities who sentenced him at the end of 2022 to two years and seven months in prison for "insulting" the members of the Turkish High Electoral Committee.
The councilor appealed but this sentence continues to loom as a threat to her political future and had ruled her out of the presidential race in May 2023.
With AFP
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