A ferry glides on the waters of the Golden Horn at sunset, with the Suleymaniye Mosque and the Turkish city of Istanbul in the background.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once said Whoever wins Istanbul wins Türkiye. If that is the case, the stakes for Sunday’s election are high as the country’s 85 million people prepare to elect local leaders and administrators.
The importance of this weekend’s vote is so high that political analysts are speculating that a win for Istanbul’s current mayor, center-left Ekrem Imamoglu, would make him the front-runner for Turkey’s 2028 presidential election. By.
This is the last thing Erdogan wants to see, as he has already seen his conservative, Islamist-sympathizing Justice and Development Party (AK Party or AKP by its Turkish abbreviation), In the 2019 city elections, Imamoglu and the more secular, moderate Republican People’s Party (CHP) suffered a crushing defeat. Erdogan was so angry at the results that he called for a second election, only to see Imamoglu beat the Justice and Development Party’s mayoral candidate by a single point by a wider margin.
An opposition victory on Sunday could take the country in a new direction, posing a major challenge to Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party’s decades-long hold on power. Erdogan himself rose to prominence as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s and later won the presidency. Now he is pushing hard for the party’s mayoral candidate, Murat Kurum, 47, a former environment and urbanization minister.
“Istanbul was a very important point in the political struggle,” said Arda Tonka. PolitikYol economist in Istanbul told CNBC. The city has a population of 16 million, which is larger than 20 of the 27 countries in the European Union.
As NATO’s second-largest military force and a major economic and political crossroads between East and West, Turkey has promoted itself as a global player in recent years, playing a key mediating role in conflicts such as the Ukraine-Russia war and brokering major investments and trade deals with wealthy Gulf Arab states.
Ukrainian President Zelensky shakes hands with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey, March 8, 2024.
Umit Bektas | Reuters
“Many countries around the world are run by cabinets of ministers, but Istanbul – which is larger than many countries – is run by mayors. It’s strange, but it also shows how important it is to win Istanbul,” Tong said. Ka said.
Major Turkish cities such as Istanbul and the capital Ankara will be key games to watch. In 2019, both elections were won by opposition parties.
“Turkey’s municipal elections tend to be a political barometer ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2028,” said Kristin Ronzi, Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk consultancy RANE.
“While candidate platforms in municipal elections reflect local issues that affect the daily lives of Turkish citizens, municipal elections can set the stage for the next presidential election.”
“The opposition’s main problem is the opposition itself”
Despite years of economic turmoil, inflation remains above 65%. turkish lira The weakest confrontation ever DollarTomka believes Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which has long dominated the country, will win this weekend’s election. He attributes this to the opposition itself, which he calls its own worst enemy.
“The main challenge for the opposition is its weak politicians and disorganized politics. The main problem for the opposition is the opposition itself,” he said.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu during the May 19 Ataturk Memorial, Youth and Sports Day celebrations at the Maltepe event area in Istanbul, Turkey, May 19, 2023 Give a speech.
Hakan Akgun | Getty Images
A major opposition coalition united in May 2023 to try to oust Erdogan from the presidency during Turkey’s last election. The result was a major defeat and disappointment for the opposition led by Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party.
Some in Turkey blame this on the fact that the popular Imamoglu, 52, himself has been barred from running by Turkey’s judiciary, a move that Erdogan’s opponents say is orchestrated by the president to reduce his competition. The Justice and Development Party said the reason behind the ban was tax-related crimes, while supporters of the Republican People’s Party said it was purely political.
“Despite the fact that the AKP has governed the country very poorly and Turkey’s economic situation has been deteriorating, the AKP will once again be the winner of the upcoming elections,” Tonka asserted.
Rane’s Ronzi sees the game as more of a close contest.
“Poll data for the Istanbul mayoral race show a close race between the two mayoral front-runners,” she said. The opposition is now more divided than before, meaning multiple opposition candidates could split the vote.
Still, she said, “close poll data from some key races shows that the Republican People’s Party has strong support in these cities. If Republican People’s Party candidates win in the main races, it will show that they can overcome the differences between the opposition parties.” Political division.”
She added that these candidates “could emerge as potential presidential candidates ahead of the 2028 presidential elections due to their ability to gain popular support (and) unite opposition voters”.
‘Increasingly authoritarian’
Analysts, meanwhile, are watching to see how the election results determine Erdogan’s next steps and whether the already uneven political playing field becomes even more undemocratic.
Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party “have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, through constitutional reforms and the imprisonment of opponents and critics,” the nonprofit Freedom House said in its 2023 Turkey Free Countries of the World report. Consolidate important powers”.
“The deepening economic crisis and upcoming elections … have given governments new incentives to stifle dissent and limit public speech,” the report added.
CNBC has contacted the Turkish president’s office for comment.
For Sona Cagaptay, director of the Turkey Studies Program at the Washington Institute, the defeat of Erdogan’s party may only strengthen these tendencies rather than weaken them.
“If the president’s faction retakes the city from the opposition on March 31, he may be relieved to focus on more aggressive heritage-building steps,” he wrote in an article For think tanks. “But if that fails, he may double down on nativist and populist policies at home and abroad.”
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