Local elections have started in Turkey.
Publika.az informs that the mayors of 81 provinces (cities), 973 districts (districts) and 390 villages (towns) and 50 thousand 336 district heads, as well as members of Elçe Municipality Assembly and El Baş Majlis, will be determined in this election contest.
In local elections held in the country on the same day and in just one round, voters will elect representatives to various positions of local government bodies. In this context, the mayor of the big city, the members of the big city municipal council, the mayor of Elche, the members of Elche municipal council, as well as the headmen; members of El Baş Mejlis in Elche, mayor of Elche, members of Elche Municipal Assembly, governors; in villages, members of El Baş Majlis, mayor of the village, members of the Municipal Assembly of the village, and governors will be elected.
The candidate with the most votes in all municipal and autonomous elections (the 50%+1 principle does not apply here) will be declared the winner of the election. The members of the municipal council will be determined according to the votes received by the parties. Mukhtars are nominated independently, they do not directly represent any party.
1 million 32 thousand 610 young people will have this opportunity for the first time in local elections where 61 million 441 thousand 882 citizens have the right to vote.
Since the elections were held in March, the Supreme Election Council postponed the voting time by 1 hour, taking into account the seasonal conditions and the sunset time in 32 eastern countries.
For this reason, Adiyaman, Ağrı, Artvin, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Erzincan, Erzurum, Gaziantep, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Hakkari, Kars, Malatya, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin, Mush, Ordu, Riza, Siirt, Sivas, Trabzon, Tunceli, The starting and ending hours of voting in Sanliurfa, Van, Bayburt, Batman, Şırnak, Ardahan, Igdir, Kilis and territorial units will be between 07:00 and 16:00 (08:00 and 17:00 Baku time).
Voting hours in other places outside these provinces will be between 08:00-17:00 (09:00-18:00 Baku time). Elections are held only on the territory of Turkey, Turkish citizens living abroad cannot participate in local elections.
The ruling and opposition parties enter the local elections more divided. Thus, unlike its main rivals, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) decided to take the “Republican Union” it founded together with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to the local elections. However, the Yenidin Rifah Party (Yidin Rifah), an alliance partner in the 2023 elections, is now a rival for power. Re-Prosperity may cause the ruling party to lose the election in some important places.
The opposition parties are facing an election test with their forces after the collapse of the “National Union” last year. The People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which supported the candidates of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the west of the country in the local elections held in 2019, is fighting with its own candidates, with some exceptions.
The MHP, which nominated a joint candidate with the AK Party in 30 cities and 29 provinces, nominated its own candidate in only two cities. MHP aims to win Mersi, which it still controls, as well as Manisa, which it lost by a narrow margin.
The epicenter of the struggle in the municipal elections, where 34 parties are competing, will be in the capital cities of Ankara and Istanbul, which are under the control of the opposition. According to the forecasts of local sociologists, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş (CHP) will manage the municipality in the next five years. In Istanbul led by Ekrem İmamoğlu, the fight will be the same as in 2019: although the former Minister of Environment, Urban Development and Climate Change Murat Kurum (AK Party) is expected to collect at least 40 percent of the votes, the current mayor is slightly ahead of him. President and AK Party Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has mobilized all his capabilities to take back Istanbul. Despite the different candidate, these elections are seen as a battleground between Imamoglu and Erdogan.
For the AK Party, which was defeated twice in the elections in 2019, the recapture of Istanbul can become a symbol of victory in the elections. Therefore, Erdogan wants to support Murat Kurum, the candidate for the chairmanship of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, as well as local candidates in the places he visits.
At the same time, it should be taken into account that these elections are held against the background of the economic crisis and the threat of earthquakes in the country. Turkey has been experiencing an economic crisis for almost six years now. Promises to get the country out of this crisis have become an integral part of the pre-election campaign. However, Istanbul faces another threat: earthquakes.
According to seismologists, a devastating earthquake can hit the city at any moment and local authorities must take all possible measures to minimize loss of life and property.
The AK Party’s agenda includes city reconstruction projects, including the demolition of old dangerous buildings and the construction of new earthquake-resistant buildings.
“The name of Murat Kurum is associated with urban development and has a symbolic meaning from this point of view,” said political science professor Seda Demiralp. Emphasizing that the institution is more technocratic, Demiralp drew attention to the fact that, unlike its competitor, it does not have a brand: “It will not be associated with its own brand, but with the party brand, and it is the opposite in İmamoğlu.”
Compared to previous elections, Erdogan has an advantage: the opposition is no longer as united as before.
Imamoglu’s victory in 2019 was largely due to the support of his six-party coalition of nationalists, secularists, liberals, conservatives, Islamists and, most importantly, Kurds, as Istanbul also has a very large Kurdish community.
However, after the defeat in the presidential elections, the opposition alliance collapsed and its member parties, including the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, which has a strong and loyal electoral base in Istanbul, nominated their own candidates to participate in the elections.
Although none of the other opposition candidates are likely to win enough votes in Istanbul, they could prevent İmamoğlu from winning. On the other hand, an important factor that could play in Imamoglu’s favor was the fact that the Islamist Yeniden Rifah nominated its candidate in Istanbul instead of supporting the AK Party.
In Istanbul, İmamoğlu and Kurum need not only the votes of their loyal supporters, but also the support of voters of other parties to ensure victory.
The AK Party is ambitious to win the elections in Antalya, Adana, Eskişehir and Hatay, which are controlled by the CHP.
The CHP, in addition to maintaining its positions in three big cities and the municipalities it won in 2019, aimed to be the first in the elections in Balıkesir, Bursa and Manisa. However, it is predicted that the municipality in Hatay and Antalya will go to the ruling party.
In 2019, the then-named People’s Democratic Party (HDP, now DEM Party) nominated candidates only in the areas where it was the leader, and supported CHP candidates in the west. This time, the DEM Party is ambitious for the places where the Kurdish population is densely populated in the west of the country. In this context, the party’s goal is to produce a mayor in some wards of Mersin, Izmir, Aydın and Istanbul.
The DEM Party intends to achieve a majority that will create a group in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Assembly.
The IYI Party, which ended its alliance with the CHP, is entering the election for the first time in a “free and independent” manner, as party representatives often say. The local elections are seen as important in terms of the continuity of the IYI Party and maintaining its claim in the 2028 elections.
The inability of the IYI Party to get what it wants in the elections may lead to a change in the leadership of the political organization, the departure of party chairman Aksener from politics, and the beginning of the process of disintegration. The increase of this number will be regarded as a success for the IYI Party, which could not win any municipalities in the last local elections and the number of delegates it won was only 21.
Ordu is the place where the IYI Party is most ambitious. Nevşehir, Niğde, Edirne and Uşak are other cities where the party is likely to win.
Yenidın Rifah, which is part of the “Republican Union” in the 2023 elections, decided to enter the election race with its own candidates after it failed to reach an agreement in the negotiations with the AK Party for the local elections.
Yenidın Rifah, which also nominated some people who resigned from the AK Party or who were not nominated, seems to be the party that most of the voters who have closed their doors to the AK Party will turn to.
In some districts of Istanbul, including Arnavutköy and Sultanbeyli, which are heavily populated by conservative voters and are still subordinate to the AK Party, Yenidın Rifah is ambitious.
Again, the closest Rifah sees to winning the election is Sanliurfa. The party is also aspiring for the mayorship in Malatya, where it won 10 percent of the votes in the last elections. (Report.az)
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