He tries not to show it. At the end of a long and exhausting election campaign, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet his supporters in Ankara early Monday morning. Erdogan has been trying to turn the mood before the local election until the end, holding up to eight rallies in one day.
Now he knows: It was not enough in many cities. The metropolises Izmir and Antalya and also the capital Ankara are likely to go to the opposition. The race is Istanbul is still completely open at this time.
Erdogan is self-confident. "We were in the lead, just as we always are in front," he told journalists in Istanbul hours before. His face, however, speaks a different language: rings have dug under the eyes, the cheeks are sunken.
Ali Unal / AP
Erdogan at his speech on Sunday evening in Ankara
Formally, on March 31, people in Turkey only voted on mayors and city councils. Erdogan himself, however, has declared the election a referendum on his government. He spoke of a "survival question". The result he can only feel as a vote of no confidence.
In Ankara, Islamists have ruled since the 1990s. Now Erdogan must resign himself to the fact that in the Turkish capital Ankara with Mansur Yavas in the future a politician of the Republican People's Party (CHP) has the shots. Yavas was a military prosecutor, he is considered nationalist-conservative. He should make life much harder for Erdogan in the years to come.
Burhan Ozbilici / DPA
Opposition politician Mansur Yavas in Ankara
The actual drama that night, however, takes place in Istanbul . The government-loyal Turkish media announce a clear lead early on for Binali Yildirim, the former premier and leading candidate of the ruling AKP party, but it shrinks to less than 5,000 votes later this evening. Just before midnight Yildirim declares himself the winner, although quite a few votes have not been counted yet. Ekrem Imamoglu, the CHP candidate, contradicts immediately.
With 15 million inhabitants, Istanbul accounts for about one fifth of the Turkish population. More than ten million people were eligible to vote in the municipal election. The fact that in the end a few thousand votes decide on victory and defeat, shows once again how divided Turkey is after almost 17 years of ACP rule.
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Erdogan led a campaign that outnumbered all previous election campaigns in hostility and aggressiveness: he defamed his opponents as terrorists and threatened not to recognize the election result. His fear of defeat was so great that he did not shy away from using the assassination attempt on two mosques in New Zealand for his campaign.
Despite financial, logistical, media superiority, despite massive harassment against the opposition Erdogan has not managed to secure the big cities for themselves. This shows how deep the frustration of the people sits over the government.
Erdogan once came to power because he promised voters a better future than any other politician. But now the country is going through the worst economic crisis since 2001.
Turkish gross domestic product shrank by almost 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Although the lira recovered slightly after the summer crash, inflation remains at a high 20 percent. Food prices have skyrocketed, especially affecting low-income citizens.
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Erdogan blames foreign forces for the misery. "They started playing a game with Turkey," he said. Sunday's result demonstrates that fewer and fewer Turks are willing to follow the conspiracy theories.
The election outcome will probably not pacify the country. In Istanbul, both government and opposition claim victory for themselves. The electoral commission has refused for hours to update the numbers. It's hard to imagine either side giving in quickly.
"Nobody will sleep in the next 48 hours," says CHP chief Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Istanbul and Turkey face exhausting days and weeks ahead.