Turkey’s opposition celebrates election victory over Erdogan
Turkey’s opposition parties have celebrated unexpected success in local elections which saw them outperform President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party and add to municipalities gained five years ago.
The main opposition, the centre-left Republican People’s Party, or CHP, kept hold of Istanbul and the capital Ankara by wide margins but also added wins in conservative provinces such as Adiyaman in the south.
The party won in 35 of Turkey’s 81 provinces – including the country’s five most populous cities – while Mr Erdogan’s Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party, or AKP, took 24.
Crucially, the CHP took 37.7 per cent of the nationwide vote with nearly all the ballots counted. The AKP secured 35.5 per cent.
The surprise results came just ten months after the opposition was left divided and demoralised following a defeat in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
“It’s a huge turning point,” said Seda Demiralp, a political science professor at Isik University in Istanbul.
“The CHP is no longer the opposition party in local government now... [Erdogan] is clearly aware that throughout Turkey voters sent a clear message, even in conservative cities. It’s unbelievable, it’s a huge deal. It’s not just about local government, it’s about voters saying they’re not happy with the AK Party government.”
Turnout was around 78 per cent, according to the staterun Anadolu Agency, compared to 87 per cent last year. The results suggested that it was mostly AKP supporters who failed to vote, Mr Demiralp said.
Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, described the results as unprecedented over Mr Erdogan’s two decades in power.
“We have never seen him lose like this,” he said. “Now the CHP is leading the AKP in the polls for the first time ... This is a landslide for the CHP because they got more votes than the AKP for the first time.” In south-east Turkey, the prokurdish Equality and Democracy Party took ten provinces while the Erdogan-allied Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, won eight scattered across the country.
The New Welfare Party, or YRP, which largely competed with the AKP over the support of conservative voters, took two provinces.
The IYI Party and the Great Unity Party won the remaining two provinces.
Following last year’s discouraging defeat, some had expected the opposition to perform poorly in Sunday’s election.
However, a change in leadership in the CHP – from the 75-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu to Ozgur Ozel, 49 – appeared to have revitalised the party and paved the way for incumbent CHP mayors and other candidates to secure conclusive victories.
Analysts contrasted the strong candidates fielded by the opposition – such as Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul and Mansur Yavas in Ankara – to those standing for the AKP, largely overshadowed by Mr Erdogan during the campaign.
Throughout Turkey, voters sent a clear message, even in conservative cities Seda Demiralp