Following the partial results of the municipal elections, Erdogan acknowledged the need for “change” for his party.
The main Turkish opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has claimed a “historic” victory after prevailing over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the country’s major cities, according to still partial official results from Sunday’s local elections.
With 81.91% of the ballots already processed, the CHP would have secured 37.13% of support in the overall election results, compared to AKP’s 36.02%, and would clearly prevail in major cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir.
The opposition mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, already announced his reelection as the leader of Turkey’s largest city, where he was first elected in 2019.
“We are in the first place with a lead of more than a million votes (…) We won the election,” he declared to the press and added that these results were based on the scrutiny of 96% of the ballots.
“The voters have decided to change the face of Turkey,” said Ozgur Ozel, the president of the social-democratic opposition party CHP, on Sunday night after the publication of the initial results.
Seventy-year-old Erdogan fully committed to the electoral campaign in this country of 85 million inhabitants to boost the candidates of his party, the Islamist-conservative AKP.
One of his main goals was to regain Istanbul, the country’s economic capital that he governed as mayor between 1994 and 1998.
However, the economic crisis affecting families, with rampant inflation, favored the opposition, and the outgoing mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, of the social-democratic CHP party, expressed cautious optimism after the publication of the initial partial results.
Following the partial results of the municipal elections, Erdogan acknowledged the need for “change” for his party.
Imamoglu had been cautious with the press on Sunday night: “The picture we have in sight is pleasing, but let’s wait for the complete results.”
In Ankara, the outgoing mayor Mansur Yavas, also from CHP, claimed victory after leading with 58.6% of the votes against 33.5% for the candidate supported by Erdogan, with 46.4% of the votes counted.
CHP also has a significant lead in Izmir, the country’s third-largest city.
The municipal elections are seen as a test for Erdogan’s government.
“There is a real need for balance, at least at the local level, against the government,” said Serhan Solak, 56, in Ankara, who said he voted for Mansur Yavas.
Although the head of state was not a candidate in these local elections, his shadow loomed more than ever over the polls, and the president held up to four rallies a day.
“This election will mark the beginning of a new era for our country,” he said after voting in Istanbul.
Erdogan was mayor of the city in the 1990s before becoming president, and in this electoral appointment, he strove to oust Imamoglu from the mayor’s office, a prominent figure in the opposition who seized the country’s main and wealthiest city from him.
If Imamoglu were to be reelected, he could gain significant weight ahead of the 2028 presidential elections.
“I hope Istanbul and Turkey wake up [on Monday] to a beautiful spring morning,” said the mayor after casting his vote, accompanied by his family.
Erdogan described him as an ambitious individual little concerned about his city, labeling him a “part-time mayor” obsessed with the presidency.
Despite Erdogan’s deployment of resources, the economic crisis weighed down his party’s chances.
The country faces an official annual inflation rate of 67% and a collapse of its currency, which went from 19 liras per dollar to 31 in a year.
“People are worried about day-to-day life,” said Guler Kaya, a 43-year-old Istanbul resident. “The crisis is swallowing up the middle class; we’ve had to change all our habits,” she recounted. “If Erdogan wins, it will be even worse.”
In the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakir in the southeast, clashes occurred on Sunday morning on the sidelines of the elections, leaving one dead and 12 wounded, an official told AFP.
This time, unlike in 2019, the opposition faced the elections divided. CHP did not achieve consensus around Imamoglu in Istanbul or elsewhere in the country. The pro-Kurdish party Dem ran independently, which favored the ruling party, threatened by the rise of the Islamist Yeniden Refah party.
