Turkish municipal elections could reset the country’s trajectory
Some 58 million Turkish voters head to the polls this Sunday to choose mayors for nearly 4,000 cities and smaller towns and thousands of city and provincial council members.
But these local elections have political consequences both for the government and for the opposition. The focus lies heavily on the pivotal political battleground of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city and economic hub, with enormous economic resources.
“It is Istanbul where the pulse of the elections beats strongest,” writes Professor Evren Balta, chair of the Department of International Relations at Ozyeiin University and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. “The results of the Istanbul vote will not only dictate the governance of Turkey’s largest city but will also play a pivotal role in shaping the future trajectory of the potential leader of the opposition.”
If the current mayor and Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu loses, the opposition will emerge further weakened and thrown into disarray. Analysts argue that it could take a decade for the opposition to recover from a defeat in Istanbul and other major cities, like Ankara.
But if the current mayor, who is considered a superstar in Turkish politics, manages to be re-elected, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have found someone capable of challenging him in the next presidential elections.
Wolfango Piccoli, co-founder of risk analysis company Teneo, predicts that the outcome of the vote is likely to be a significant blow for Erdogan and his ruling AKP party. He argues that while polls indicate that the race for Istanbul remains tight, Imamoglu has the upper hand thanks to his campaign skills and the disastrous performance on the campaign trail of his AKP opponent, Murat Kurum.
“A re-election would boost Imamoglu’s political prominence at the national level, confirming his status as the only figure who can beat Erdogan and setting him up as the opposition front-runner for the next presidential election. This, in turn, could rejuvenate the political fortunes of the anti-Erdogan front,” Piccoli says.
If he loses, Piccoli adds, he will be most likely try to create his own political movement, because it will be difficult for him to find a path within the CHP. But for some time, he will be out of the political picture.
After losing the presidential elections in 2023, the opposition entered the 2024 elections at a disadvantage. However, Balta argues that the incumbent mayors of Istanbul and Ankara (Mansur Yavas) enjoy high levels of approval and remain potential flagship candidates for the opposition.
“There is a prevalent tradition of strategic voting in local elections, which may see opposition supporters coalescing at the grassroots level, even in the absence of formal party alliances,” she adds.
Next challenge: Constitutional change
A victory on Sunday’s elections would provide a significant boost for Erdogan to move ahead with constitutional change.
A new constitution or changes to the current one would allow the Turkish president to extend and ease his rule, as he could get rid of presidential term limits and reduce the threshold for the election of the president, while he could also limit the power of the Constitutional Court.
“Erdogan is expected to push ahead with his plan to change Turkey’s constitution regardless of the outcome of the vote,” Piccoli says. “A defeat would likely complicate but not necessarily completely derail his efforts to secure the support of the opposition lawmakers needed.”
If he manages to win back Istanbul, analysts argue that he will have no difficulty in reaching out to the Kurds and the nationalist MPs from Meral Aksener’s party, whom he needs to change the constitution.
If Imamoglu wins, Erdogan will become more unpredictable, opt for polarization and will be forced to make new concessions to his ultra-nationalist partner Devlet Bahceli.
