Holding sensitive municipal elections in Türkiye

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once said that whoever wins Istanbul is the winner of Turkey. If so, the challenges in today’s elections are enormous for the 85 million who are preparing to elect local leaders and administrators.

The importance of today’s vote is such that political analysts speculate that the victory of the current mayor of Istanbul, Akram Imamoglu, from the center-left party, will make him a leading candidate for the presidency of Turkey in 2028. This is the last thing Erdogan wants, as he has already seen his conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party, known as the AK Party, or AKP, defeated in municipal elections by Imamoglu and the more moderate, secular Republican People’s Party (CHP).

In 2019, Erdoğan was so enraged by the results of the election that he held a second election, but saw that Imamoglu defeated the mayoral candidate of the Justice and Development Party by a larger margin.

The outcome of today’s vote could strengthen Erdogan’s grip on NATO-member Turkey or signal a shift in the divided political landscape of this major emerging economy.

Voting centers opened at 7:00 AM (04:00 GMT) in eastern Turkey, and voting elsewhere started at 8:00 AM and ended at 5:00 PM. It is expected that the preliminary results will be announced by 22:00.

Earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerli Kaya announced the deployment of 600,000 security forces to ensure the security of local elections in Turkey.

Municipal elections in Turkey are held every five years and include the election of mayors and city council members in large and small cities in Turkey.

Polls point to a tight race in Istanbul, a city of 16 million people that drives Turkey’s economy, where Imamoglu faces a challenge from Justice and Development Party candidate Murat Kurum, a former cabinet minister.

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The results are likely to be shaped in part by economic woes caused by rampant inflation of nearly 70 percent and by Kurdish and Islamist voters assessing the government’s performance and their hopes for political change.

While Erdogan’s main prize is Istanbul, he is also looking to retake the capital, Ankara. Both cities were won by the opposition in 2019 after 25 years under the rule of the Justice and Development Party and its Islamist predecessors.

The pro-Kurdish main party voters were crucial to Imamoglu’s success in 2019. Their DEM party has presented its candidate this time in Istanbul, but many Kurds are expected to abandon party loyalty and vote for him again.

In the predominantly Kurdish southeast, DEM is seeking to reassert its power after pro-Kurdish party mayors were ousted after previous elections for links to militias. One of the factors that works against Erdogan is the increase in support for the Islamist New Welfare Party due to this party’s strong position against the Zionist regime regarding the Gaza conflict and dissatisfaction with the economic management of the Justice and Development Party.

Source: ISNA