Historic local elections in Turkey as opposition deals unprecedented blow to Erdoğan

Turkey’s main opposition party has achieved a historic victory against the nation’s 22-year ruling party as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In a stunning turn of events, the opposition secured the majority of votes nationwide for the first time since 1977, prompting the two-decade de-facto ruler of Turkey to deliver his first-ever concession speech.

The 37.7% of the vote won by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) represented the first time since 1977 that the party has won a plurality of votes nationwide. Founded by Turkish founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923, the center-left secularist party has been Turkey’s main opposition party throughout the 22-year rule of President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

New Welfare Party’s strong showing

Coming in third place nationwide behind the AKP, the far-right Islamist New Welfare Party (YRP) was one of the biggest surprises of the night, capturing 6.19% of votes across Turkey as well as control of major provinces such as Yozgat and Şanlıurfa.

Erdoğan is a former member of the YRP’s predecessor, the Welfare Party, and his involvement in the party contributed to his political rise throughout the 1990s, including during his tenure as the mayor of Istanbul. The Welfare Party’s late head, Necmettin Erbakan, was father of current YRP leader Fahit Erbakan and is widely seen as Erdoğan’s precursor. A leader of the Islamist Milli Görüş movement for decades, Erbakan became prime minister in 1996 before stepping down following a so-called ‘postmodern coup’ a year later in which the Turkish military demanded his resignation. The Welfare Party was subsequently banned by Turkish courts for allegedly violating the country’s secularist principles.

Tensions between Erdoğan’s AKP and Erbakan’s YRP have been high since the YRP’s announcement earlier this year that they would run their own candidates, having previously allied with Erdoğan in last year’s elections. Both parties draw on a similar right-wing, socially conservative anatolian voter base. Erdoğan’s relationship with the Milli Görüş movement has been sensitive over the years, with some YRP seeing his founding of the AKP as a betrayal. 

The YRP has been particularly critical in recent months of Turkey’s ongoing trade with Israel, despite harsh anti-Israeli rhetoric from AKP officials throughout the war in Gaza.

Low turnout

Low turnout across the country was identified by many as a major contributor to the AKP’s poor showing. Yesterday’s 78.11% turnout compares to 88% in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, and 86% in 2018’s presidential contest. 

Sunday’s election occurred in the context of an ongoing economic crisis in Turkey that has seen steady inflation and austerity measures including a recent announcement by Erdoğan that a hike to retirement pensions would not be possible, even if other spending were slashed.

A low turnout may have been the electorate’s way of punishing the ruling party for Turkey’s dire economic conditions, according to political scientist Evren Balta, who spoke to Medyascope during Sunday evening’s broadcast: 

“In 2002’s elections which brought the AKP to power, voters turned out in lower numbers as a way of punishing the ruling government at the time. Now we are seeing a similar phenomenon but inverted. I believe there is a connection in Turkey between economic crisis, turnout numbers, and a tendency to punish the ruling party at the polls.”

Upsets show earthquake’s lingering effects

Critical victories by the CHP included upsets in provinces such as Adıyaman and Balıkesir, long considered strongholds of the AKP. Antalya, an opposition stronghold in which the AKP had been seen as competitive, was also won by a CHP candidate, Muhittin Böcek. 

The race in the southeastern province of Hatay remains close wıth 99% of precincts reporting. A CHP stronghold, the provincial capital of Antakya was the worst-affected city in the major earthquakes of February 2023, with the historic center almost entirely reduced to rubble.

In a controversial speech from early February marking the first anniversary of the disaster, President Erdoğan said that central government aid to rebuild the area would only flow if the province elected an AKP mayor, leading to strong criticism from the opposition.

Hatay’s incumbent CHP mayor Luftu Savaş had been criticized for an inadequate response in the aftermath of the quakes. AKP candidate Mehmet Öntürk currently leads Savaş by a margin of 44.47% to 43.97%, suggesting control of the province is likely to change hands. CHP party head Özgür Özel has alleged voting irregularities in Hatay, while Savaş has vowed to fight on with nearly all votes counted.

The earthquake’s lingering effects on Turkish politics were also made clear in Adıyaman, which voted for President Erdoğan’s coalition with 63% of the vote in May 2023. On Sunday, the CHP’s margin of victory over the AKP was over 22 percentage points in Adıyaman, showing a major swing away from the president’s party.

The AKP’s failure to deliver on major housing reconstruction promises following the earthquake has been viewed as a possible reason for the party’s poor showing.

First concession for Erdoğan, third victory for İmamoğlu

In a speech at AKP headquarters in Ankara in the early hours of Monday morning, Erdoğan made what amounted to the first concession speech of his career, acknowledging his party’s shortcomings across the country. 

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu celebrated Sunday evening a third election victory against Erdoğan’s AKP. Originally elected by a slim 10,000 vote margin in March 2019, the results of İmamoğlu’s victory were controversially invalidated and a rerun was ordered after officials close to the AKP alleged irregularities in voting. In the rerun in June 2019, voters turned out en masse and İmamoğlu increased his winning margin over AKP candidate Binali Yıldırım by some ten-fold, delivering Erdoğan the largest defeat of his political career up until that point.

Floated as a possible presidential challenger against Erdoğan last year, İmamoğlu ended up supporting then-CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in his campaign against the president. In addition to Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential ambitions, an ongoing legal case against İmamoğlu as well as fears over losing control over the Istanbul municipality were cited as reasons for the Istanbul mayor’s choice not to run for president. Following last night’s victory, expectations that İmamoğlu will run against Erdoğan in 2028 are even higher.

The CHP also won a majority in Istanbul’s city council Sunday night, meaning İmamoğlu will have an easier time greenlighting major projects going forwards. Additionally, the Istanbul mayor will not be replaced by an AKP appointee if he chooses to run for president in 2028, removing a major hurdle for İmamoğlu in seeking higher office.

In his victory speech outside of Istanbul’s municipal building in Saraçhane, İmamoğlu proclaimed “The one-man tutelage era is finished, it is over. The nation is the one who gives the orders, not a single person.”

İYİ Party contemplates future

Apart from the AKP, the center-right nationalist İYİ Party suffered major losses in Sunday’s polls, capturing only 3.77% of the nationwide vote and failing to win control over any major metropolitan centers. In an announcement Monday afternoon, party chairwoman Meral Akşener stopped short of resignation but called for a meeting of the party congress to assess the election results. 

An ally of the CHP in 2023’s general elections, the İYİ Party chose to run their own candidates in Sunday’s local races. Throughout the campaign period, the party became increasingly critical of İmamoğlu and the Ankara mayor Mansur Yavaş, both CHP politicians who the party had previously supported enthusiastically.

Apart from the IYI Party’s poor showing, anti-immigrant ultranationalist Zafer Party had a poor night. Former ‘Table of Six’ opposition alliance members Gelecek, DEVA, and Saadet Parties also finished with disappointing results, barely registering support in races across the country.

Kurdish DEM Party secures victories despite influx of AKP voters in southeast

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party, long considered a kingmaker in domestic politics, had a small showing in Istanbul Sunday, capturing only 2% of the vote. Kurdish voters’ preference for İmamoğlu despite the lack of a formal alliance was widely attributed as the reason for this showing. İmamoğlu had ramped up overtures to Kurdish voters in the final weeks of the campaign.

In the DEM Party’s heartland of heavily-Kurdish southeastern Anatolia, the party managed to pick up victories despite a flood of AKP voters. Throughout the day Sunday, videos circulated showing so-called ‘transported voters’ (‘taşımalı seçmen’) arriving in large buses at polling stations throughout the southeastern provinces. In the lead-up to the vote, the AKP was alleged to have shipped in large numbers of police and security officials to these provinces in order to tip the elections in their favor.

DEM’s predecessor, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), had won provinces throughout the southeast in 2019’s local elections only to have their officials deposed and replaced by AKP appointees in what became known as the ‘trustee’ (‘kayyum’) system. In the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, the question of whether the AKP would repeat such practices received major attention, with some alleging that the ‘transported voters’ represented a new technique employed by the AKP to keep southeastern provinces out of DEM Party control.

In provinces alleged to have had large numbers of ‘transported voters’ descend on the polls, such as in Iğdır and Ağrı, the DEM Party nevertheless managed to secure victory. In Şırnak, where videos had circulated Sunday showing hundreds of security officials arriving by bus at polling stations, the AKP managed to edge out DEM by a margin of around six percentage points.

Written by Leo Kendrick