Turkey election: former AKP-supporting provinces show signs of flipping

A new Turkish-language series from Medyascope examines voter attitudes across the country’s 81 provinces through street interviews with local voters and conversations with local journalists and party offices. Adana, Mersin, and Çanakkale provinces all went for President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s most recent parliamentary elections in 2018. These three, however, are considered swing provinces and show signs of flipping to the opposition in Turkey’s upcoming elections on May 14. Medyascope correspondents spoke to citizens in these four provinces to gain a sense for voter preferences heading into one of the most consequential elections in modern Turkish history. 

Adana

The southeastern province of Adana voted 44% for President Erdoğan in the 2018 polls, compared to just 35% for the president’s main challenger Muharrem İnce. The following year, however, the province flipped to the opposition in its municipal elections, in an election cycle that also saw Istanbul and Ankara move to opposition control. Indicators suggest that this year also may be a tough one for President Erdoğan and the AKP. Local journalist Armağan Kabaklı described Adana voter behavior to Medyascope correspondent Edanur Tanış: “Adana voters love to punish [politicians]. We can connect this to the fact that Adana residents have been unable to benefit from municipal services, and that the desired investments in infrastructure have been unfulfilled…I believe that the current AKP government does not have a future left to write for Adana.”

Loss of voters from Erdoğan’s National Action Party (MHP) coalition partner to the opposition  center-right İYİ Party could also be a factor for Adana in the upcoming elections. The İYİ Party was formed in 2017 by former MHP member Meral Akşener, following her expulsion from the party the previous year due to her opposition to the 2017 presidential system referendum, which MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli supported. This mini-schism in the MHP caused some voters to migrate to Akşener’s new party, which is now part of the opposition electoral alliance against Erdoğan. Describing how the drift of nationalist Adana voters to the İYİ Party could be a factor this May, Kabaklı said “IYI has become the third biggest party in Adana. And we see that a significant number of these IYI Party voters are in fact former MHP members.”

Bülent Büyükdağ, president of the local Adana chapter of the Turkish Workers Party (TİP), also spoke to Medyascope and described drugs as one of the biggest threats facing the city. “Local families would like to see this issue addressed and save our neighborhoods from this problem. Unfortunately we are the only party that seems to be mentioning this issue.“

Predicting that joint opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu would win the city handily, Büyükdağ said “TIP voters will be supporting Kılıçdaroğlu. I do not expect even a single vote to go to Erdoğan.” A citizen Medyascope spoke to on the street described his frustration with President Erdoğan’s political Islamism saying “Because of this republican and presidential system they have built that is based on religion, we cannot support Erdoğan.”

Mersin

In Adana’s neighboring city of Mersin, sentiments were similar with many predicting that the city would flip towards the opposition. Like Adana, Mersin went for Erdoğan and the AKP in 2018’s presidential and parliamentary polls, before municipal elections flipped to the opposition the following year. With an official population of around 2 million, the province has swelled to close to 3 million as a result of Syrian refugees, Ukrainians escaping the current war, as well as Russians who have moved to the city recently to escape the draft. Many residents described this swelling population that has resulted from immigration due to these crises as a serious problem that has not been dealt with by the current government.

In Mersin’s heavily Kurdish Akdeniz district, many voters expressed their preference for Kılıçdaroğlu. Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which regularly commands 10-12% of the Turkish vote, chose not to run their own presidential candidate last month in a show of support for Kılıçdaroğlu, despite the fact that they remain officially outside the main opposition alliance. Following the direction of the party, a Kurdish voter in Mersin told Medyascope correspondents “I will vote for whomever the HDP says I should vote for. If they had run their own candidate, we would have voted for them.”

Local journalist Hediye Eroğlu described a similar trend as observed in Adana, with support of nationalist voters drifting from the MHP to İYİ Party of late: “In the most recent elections, Mersin was one of the provinces in which the İYİ Party enjoyed the most success. This region previously made up an important part of the MHP base. Now there is a significant switch of support from the MHP to İYİ Party.“

Responding to concerns from some Mersin voters that the CHP and Kılıçdaroğlu have become too cosy with the pro-Kurdish HDP, Mersin’s local district CHP branch head Koral Ömür told Medyascope “Our presidential candidate met with the HDP just like he met with many other parties. These meetings are routine and must be done. It is just communication, and does not imply any type of alliance.” The HDP’s decision not to run their own presidential candidate had been preceded by an official visit by Kılıçdaroğlu to the HDP party headquarters in Ankara. 

Çanakkale

On the opposite side of the country, Çanakkale is another swing province that went for AKP in 2018’s parliamentary elections only to support the opposition the following year, in which CHP mayoral candidate Ülgür Gökhan won some 60% of the vote. While the province has traditionally enjoyed a reputation as a stronghold of the CHP, recent election cycles have shown the vulnerability of the party’s supremacy in the province. CHP Çanakkale Province head Sabiha Güler Koçer told Medyascope that the party feels optimistic about Kılıçdaroğlu’s chances in the district because of the strength of the opposition coalition: “We feel that our chances are good this year with the Table of Six coalition. We are working tirelessly and stubbornly believe that we will win.” From Medyascope’s street interviews, the vast majority of locals voiced their support for Kılıçdaroğlu, saying “Change is necessary,” “20 years is enough, it’s time to try out something new.” Additionally, multiple locals expressed that a recent controversy in which Kılıçdaroğlu stepped on a Muslim prayer rug (Seccade) following a Ramadan breaking-of-the-fast dinner was a cheap distraction unrelated to the real issues facing the country.

When asked why Çanakkale locals are steadfast about supporting Kılıçdaroğlu, the economic crisis facing Turkey was most commonly given as the reason. A retiree complained that his pension has now dropped below minimum wage, while another cited Kılıçdaroğlu’s promise that 15,000 Lira will be given to all pensioners on the upcoming Feast of the Sacrifice holiday (Kurban Bayramı) should he win the election. The holiday starts at the end of June this year, just one month after a hypothetical second round in the presidential election would occur. 

Click here to read the report from Medyascope’s street interviews with voters in Istanbul’s most conservative districts.

Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick