A new series from Medyascope explores the attitudes among citizens towards May’s upcoming presidential election through street interviews in major cities and provinces of Turkey. Through five installments in various districts of Istanbul, Medyascope correspondents spoke with voters in order to ascertain their preferences. In particular, reporting focused on districts of Istanbul in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have previously enjoyed overwhelming support, in order to gain a sense of whether voter’s preferences have held firm, or whether the president’s support has diminished amidst economic crisis, a devastating earthquake, and a unified opposition that threatens to end Erdoğan’s 20-year rule.
Fatih
In 2018’s presidential election, President Erdoğan won İstanbul’s Fatih district with 53.8% of the vote. Containing many of the city’s most famous and visited tourist destinations, including the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, and Covered Bazaar, the Fatih district extends deep into İstanbul’s European side and has become well known in recent years for its sizable population of Syrian refugees. Those citizens who spoke with Medyascope named refugees, economy, and urban transformation instituted by the government (kentsel dönüşüm) as the biggest issues facing the district.
In Çarşamba and Kocamustafapaşa neighborhoods of Fatih, Medyascope reporting found that the majority of residents spoken to still voiced their support for President Erdoğan, although supporters of main opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu were still found with relative frequency. In one instance, an argument occurred between two citizens, one supporting Kılıçdaroğlu and the other Erdoğan.
Esenyurt
Located deep on Istanbul’s European side between Küçükçekmece and Büyükçekmece lakes, Esenyurt hosts the largest population of any of Istanbul’s electoral districts. Traditionally an AKP stronghold, the district voted a plurality 39.4% for President Erdoğan in 2018’s presidential election, before flipping to opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) control in 2019’s municipal elections, an election which saw the mayoral victory of CHP candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu and the end of nearly 20 years of AKP rule in Turkey’s largest city.
Asked why he was voting for Kılıçdaroğlu, one Esenyurt resident said: “We’ve tried President Erdoğan for the past 20 years. As someone who has previously voted for the AKP, I can say that I will never again give them my vote.” In conversations with numerous other Esenyurt residents, the shift from former Erdoğan supporters to Kılıçdaroğlu was appreciable. Among those who have changed their voting preference to the opposition, economic factors were most commonly cited as factors.
With a large population of ethnic Kurds, many residents also expressed their support for the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and the party’s imprisoned former leader Selahattin Demirtaş. The HDP has chosen not to run a presidential candidate in next month’s elections, a move widely interpreted as tacit support for Kılıçdaroğlu, whose coalition the HDP remains officially separate from. Given the lack of a standalone HDP candidate, many HDP voters Medyascope spoke to in Esenyurt expressed that they would likely follow their party in supporting the main opposition leader.
Among the Erdoğan supporters in Esenyurt, there were those who acknowledged the reality of Turkey’s dire economic situation while emphasizing that their support for the strongman was unwavering. One Erdoğan supporter said: “I will vote for Erdoğan, even if we die we will vote for Erdoğan.”
The İYİ Party’s Esenyurt district chairman Hakan Akkuş spoke with Medyascope and described drugs as the most serious problem facing Esenyurt. “The drug problem in Esenyurt has reached scary levels. One in three households in our district is affected by drugs.” The chairman also cited issues with housing in the district and the presence of a huge refugee population as other problems facing Esenyurt. Out of its population of nearly 1 million inhabitants, some 450,000 are Syrian refugees, a third of whom are undocumented according to Akkuş. The center-right İYİ Party is part of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s electoral alliance and will be supporting the CHP leader in the upcoming election.
Üsküdar
Üsküdar, a famously conservative district lying on the Asian side of İstanbul’s Bosphorus Strait, is also an area that has seen movement towards the opposition in recent election cycles. Erdoğan won the district by 49.9% to the opposition’s 41.6% in the 2018 presidential election. The following year, however, now-mayor Erkrem İmamoğlu won the district over his AKP challenger by nearly 10 points in the rerun of the İstanbul mayoral election. Medyascope reporting, however, found support for President Erdoğan in the district to be largely intact. One voter said “We’ll vote for Erdoğan, who else are we supposed to vote for?” A woman from another group of interviewees Medyascope spoke to, when asked about Turkey’s dire economic situation, said “The people who complain about the economy are the same people who complain about everything. They will never be satisfied.” Another Erdoğan supporter described Turkey as “The freest country in the world, with the freest citizens in the world.”
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Not all Üsküdar residents, however, were rosy on the president’s performance. One young resident who said he would be voting for the first time said “I’m not at all happy with the current situation in the country. Kılıçdaroğlu seems like the only realistic choice. My mother was previously an AKP supporter but even she has been unhappy in the past two election cycles. Even though we’re in Üsküdar everyone is extremely critical of the current government and would like to see them voted out.” An İYİ Party representative from the district characterized Üsküdar as representative of Turkey at large, saying “Whatever problems I’m hearing of here in Üsküdar, I hear of the same ones everywhere around Turkey.”
Bağcılar
Bağcılar is another famously conservative district on the European side of the city that supported Erdoğan by an overwhelming 61.3% in 2018’s presidential election. Medyascope’s street reporting from the district indicated that while the president continues to enjoy loyal support from Bağcılar residents, support for Kılıçdaroğlu is significant, especially among HDP voters.
In a gaffe on March 31, Kılıçdaroğlu angered many conservative Islamic voters when he accidentally stepped on a Muslim prayer rug (seccade) in a photo op while attending a breaking-of-the-fast (iftar) dinner. Kılıçdaroğlu issued a quick apology, but criticism was unforgiving. Erdoğan and AKP allies were quick to jump on the incident to prop up their conservative base. In a rally in Bağcılar’s central square two days later on April 2, the president commented on Kılıçdaroğlu’s gaffe, saying “There’s not much left, only 40 days [until the election]. During these 40 days it is possible that some will use their shoes to step on the seccade because these orders are coming directly from Pennsylvania, and they [the opposition] are dependent on these orders.” The president’s comments reference Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic cleric residing in Pennsylvania, USA who is accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating 2016’s failed coup attempt.
Imprisoned former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş won 12% of the vote in Bağcılar in 2018’s presidential election. Among the HDP-supporting voters who spoke to Medyascope, many said they would follow their party’s move and extend their support to Kılıçdaroğlu.
Most recently, Medyascope has visited Esenler, another district on the European side of İstanbul that votes heavily for Erdoğan’s party. In the 2018 presidential election, the president won an enormous 67.9%. Medyascope reporting from last week (April 7) indicates that the district stands by Erdoğan as he seeks to win a third consecutive presidential term. When asked about rising food prices, one loyal Erdğan supporter in Esenler told Medyascope “Even if the vegetables we buy become 50 Lira, what are we supposed to do, just give our country away?” Another woman who described herself as a “staunch Erdoğan fan” said she did not even want to consider the prospect of Kılıçdaroğlu winning, saying “God help us” should such a scenario arise.
According to CHP district head Kemal Şahin who spoke with Medyascope, poverty, education, and housing are the biggest challenges facing Esenler. Some 20% of the district’s population consists of undocumented immigrants, another issue raised by Şahin. Describing how children growing up in the district do not have enough space to play, Şahin said “Children play on top of asphalt. So the municipal government blocked off a street and designated it a ‘children play zone’. This is a disgrace.” Although recognizing that Esenler is a traditional AKP stronghold, Şahin mentioned that Kılıçdaroğlu’s vote share in the upcoming election could reach 45%.
Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
