“Honestly, it is a huge surprise that the Turkish opposition, especially the Republican People’s Party (CHP), performed so well. In recent months, it has already been seen the negative consequences of the fact that the ruling party did not field very strong candidates in the big cities. Turkey’s poor economic conditions also indicated that the ruling party’s results in the municipal elections would not be very good. But no one expected such a bad result,” said Turkey researcher Zoltán Egeresi about the fact that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) won the most positions in the municipal elections in Turkey. According to the preliminary results, the opposition party was able to obtain 35 of the 81 mayoral positions in big cities. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), came second for the first time since its foundation in 2002 with 24 mayoral positions won.
In addition to an almost complete total of the votes, Ekrem Imamoglu, the candidate of the CHP, remained the mayor of Istanbul by winning about 51 percent of the votes, while his challenger, Murat Kurum (AKP), received almost 40 percent of the votes. In the Turkish capital, Ankara, the incumbent mayor also won, Mansur Yavas (CHP) defeated his challenger from the ruling party by more than twenty percentage points. According to Zoltán Egeresi, the result is particularly surprising in light of the fact that after the presidential election, which brought another great victory for Erdogan, the Turkish opposition seemed to have weakened significantly.
A huge loss, a tactical choice
“One of the most important lessons of the local government elections is that the local power relations are different than at the national level. We see that all the opposition parties ran independent candidates in Turkish cities in vain, because the voters voted for the strongest opposition candidate, so to speak, they made a strategic decision. We must also not forget that the opposition was most likely much more mobilized than the ruling party. Moreover, it is safe to say that they lost three million voters compared to the previous election. We can talk about a huge loss,” said the Turkey expert, who said that even the traditionally pro-government voters could vote for the opposition candidates.
In the local government elections, an Islamist party that started to gain strength in the last year received six percent. According to Zoltán Egeresi, this formation may pose a challenge to the ruling party in the future, because we can talk about a party that can become a successful challenger on the conservative, center-right side, and during the current elections, it was able to convince several former mayors from the AKP to be their candidate. get going.
Why did they lose three million voters?
In addition to the astonishing inflation and the uncertain economic environment, the weak performance of the governing party was contributed to by the fact that the AKP was unable to field suitable candidates against the more talented, proven and at the same time tested candidates.
The reigning mayors started popular social programs in big cities like Istanbul or Ankara. It is enough if we only think about food distribution, travel subsidies, helping the poor, establishing student dormitories and dormitories. Social measures to strengthen the local community were introduced, which became widely popular
– he stated, adding that the opposition mayors were also able to show results in the field of infrastructural developments, but the voters could not only experience development in Istanbul or Ankara, similar processes also started in other big cities, while the secular left-wing candidates represented every layer of society, as well as the they also made gestures towards minorities.
“Although the mayor of Ankara ran in center-left colors, we can actually talk about a nationalist politician. That is why even voters who would not have voted for a centre-left candidate were able to vote for him. The CHP is an opposition party that can be classified as left-wing, but in many cases it has launched center-right candidates who are very sellable at the local level based on their performance over the past five years, especially in such difficult economic conditions,” he added.
The biggest adversary and the struggling economy
According to Zoltán Egeresi, it is likely that after such a big victory, Ekrem Imamoglu, the re-elected mayor of Istanbul, will challenge Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential election due in four years, but it is still very difficult to predict what kind of internal political changes and processes we will witness in the period leading up to the next, even more important vote. . Before the last presidential election, the popularity of several mayors was measured and they proved to be more popular than Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was inferior to Erdogan.
It seems that in the next presidential election, a common candidate is not necessary for the opposition voters to make a strategic decision again and support the most likely politician. We must mention that there are also voters among the opposition who do not particularly like Imamoglu, because they see him as Erdogan dressed in a center-left garb. Many fear that he may also become an authoritarian leader. An excellent orator, a real politician
added the researcher.
Erdogan not only has to face the difficulties caused by the election defeat, but also the strengthening and growing popularity of his potential challenger. The Turkish economy seems vulnerable to external factors. The energy crisis, the coronavirus epidemic, and the war in Ukraine and Gaza also affected it sensitively. According to a recent announcement by the Turkish Statistical Office, the rate of annual consumer price growth rose to 68.50 percent, the highest level since November 2022, from 67.07 percent in February, but fell short of the average analyst expectation of 69.10 percent.
The increase in prices accelerated in most monitored groups, especially in transport (from 77.98 percent in February to 79.92 percent in March), utilities (from 49.07 percent to 51.17 percent), clothing and footwear (43, from 44 percent to 50.10 percent), and for hotels, cafes and restaurants (from 94.78 percent to 94.97 percent). Meanwhile, annual core inflation rose to 75.21 percent from 72.89 percent in February. In March, the monthly increase in consumer prices slowed to 3.16 percent compared to February, when they were measured at 4.53 percent.
Commenting on the March inflation data, Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said that the government is making efforts to ensure the country’s financial stability and emphasized that the monthly inflation in March decreased in line with their forecasts. On March 21, the Turkish central bank raised the benchmark seven-day repo rate from 45 percent to 50 percent. This was the ninth rate hike since last May, starting from 8.50 percent. In 2023, the annual inflation was 64.77 percent. According to the central bank’s expectations, annual inflation will accelerate to 70-75 percent by May this year, and then slow down to 36 percent by the end of the year.
The crises did not affect other countries so deeply as to produce world-record inflation. In recent years, they have basically tried to keep the central bank base rate low. The new minister of finance, following an orthodox economic policy, brought about change, and the newly appointed governor of the central bank raised the base interest rate spectacularly. The measures have had a positive effect on the economic outlook, but such high inflation cannot be easily dealt with. If relatively high interest rates remain and there is no major turnaround, the fight against inflation will be a painful and long process. The goal of keeping interest rates low was to boost economic growth. It was successful, many investments are taking place, while the whole of Southeast Turkey has to be rebuilt as a result of the earthquake. GDP growth is very good, unemployment is at a spectacularly low level, but it is very difficult for them to do anything with inflation
– said Zoltán Egeresi, adding that the Turkish leadership now has to pay its political bill for considering economic growth more important than low inflation.
Results in the shop window
Reacting to the election result, Erdogan said that the voting was a turning point and that it did not turn out the way he had hoped. He said that he and his party will learn lessons and will use the four years before the next presidential election to renew themselves and compensate for their mistakes. “Regardless of the result, the winner of the election is primarily our democracy, the national will,” said the Turkish president.
“After every election, they say that democracy has won, but usually the ruling party wins. The big question is what the system’s response will be. They will probably respect the results, but it is certain that it will not be done in the name of democracy, but in terms of state security, which is what we see in the eastern part of the country when Kurdish mayors are removed. Kurdish voters cannot be happy. It is certain that the result of the election is an important signal to the outside world and to the Turkish population, because even though there is a highly centralized presidential, in some respects authoritarian system in Turkey, it is still possible to win in the elections,” answered the specialist to Index’s question.
(Cover photo: Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas, mayoral candidate of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), accompanied by his wife Nursen Yavas, votes in a polling station during local elections in Ankara, Turkey on March 31, 2024. Photo: Cagla Gurdogan / Reuters)
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2024-04-07 14:59:29