The ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey was defeated in the elections of local self-governing bodies. By and large, this was not unexpected, considering the difficulty with which Erdogan won the presidential election a year ago. By and large, the result of the local government election shows what kind of “powder keg” Erdogan is sitting on in the domestic political sense. On the other hand, although it is the first time in general that his party has suffered a defeat in the collective meaning of local government elections, it is not the first time that Erdogan has suffered a major defeat in individual cities.
For example, in 2019, he lost the election of the mayor of Istanbul, then canceled the result and tried to ensure the victory of his party’s candidate in a new attempt, which by the way was former Prime Minister Yildirim, but the opposition candidate Imamoglu won again. That circumstance gave many people a reason to think that the defeat in Turkey’s largest city will be the beginning of Erdogan’s political downfall, but he is still in power today, despite the fact that Turkey’s internal situation and economic condition have not improved at all, if not to say the opposite.
At the same time, Erdogan has tried to maintain his political positions through wars, the biggest of which was probably the war against Artsakh, as a result of which Turkey appeared in the center of the Caucasus, at the same time bringing major geopolitical changes. Will Erdoğan try to “compensate” again for a new and essentially bigger defeat in the local government election with some kind of war? This is perhaps the main question that arises for subjects outside of Turkey, and naturally for Armenia as well, after the local government elections in Turkey.
And that issue deepens after Erdogan’s post-election speech. After the end of the local government election, he gave a speech and declared the election another victory of Turkish democracy, saying that the local government election showed that they will not do anything against the will of the people. At the same time, Erdogan spoke about the fight against terrorism, saying that over the years terrorist organizations have been cornered and will deliver the “deadly blow. Of course, this is an announcement of a power bet that Erdogan makes after losing the local government election. There is no doubt that he considers this “component” as one of the key means of counterbalancing internal political and economic problems.
Accordingly, the question arises as to where and when Erdogan will apply this component. On the other hand, Foreign Minister, former head of intelligence Fidan is considered as a possible successor of Erdogan. Erdogan promoted him from the position of the head of the intelligence service to the position of minister after the presidential election last year. This allows us to think that conditions should be created for Fidan to record diplomatic successes, thereby gaining points to replace Erdogan. In any case, the local government elections showed that Turkey in general remains an unpredictable player based on the domestic situation.
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