Turkey’s opposition in electoral battle

Published April 1, 2024 · Updated March 31, 2024

Supporters of Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu wave Turkish flags during a campaign event before the local elections.

Al Jazeera :
Across much of the world, local elections generate little interest beyond the town hall but in Turkey, voting for officials ranging from metropolitan mayors to neighbourhood representatives grips the nation for weeks ahead of polling day.
Despite having turned out for presidential and parliamentary polls only 10 months ago, Turkish television and newspapers have been full of news, opinion and debate on the March 31 local vote.
Across the country, voters will elect more than 23,000 officials but most attention will be on the mayors picked to run Turkey’s 30 largest cities.
This is especially true in Istanbul, the country’s most populous city and its economic powerhouse, where an opposition victory in 2019 was seen as a setback in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s largely flawless electoral record.
Victory for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Istanbul five years ago ended the city’s 25 years of rule by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its conservative predecessors.
The loss of Istanbul also struck a personal note for Erdogan, who was born and raised in the city and served as its mayor in the 1990s.
Ejder Batur, deputy chairman of the AK Party’s Istanbul branch, cited Erdogan’s spell as mayor as one of the factors behind his success on the national stage and a sign of why local polls have such significance.
“He provided great contributions and services to the daily lives of Istanbulites … and this bond he established with them was a tool that brought him to power in the central administration,” Batur said.
“Istanbul has a symbolic significance in every election and all the big cities now have CHP mayors apart from Bursa, the fourth-biggest city,” said CHP Deputy Chairman Ilhan Uzgel.
Istanbul’s 2019 result was mirrored in the capital Ankara and Antalya, leaving the CHP in control of four of the five biggest cities, accounting for one-third of Turkey’s population.
Retaking Istanbul would also give the AK Party the opportunity to sideline its CHP Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is seen as a potential presidential challenger in the future.
This year’s election will see some 35 political parties taking part across Turkey. The level of participation is such that voters in Istanbul will be given a ballot paper nearly a metre (3 feet) wide to accommodate 49 mayoral candidates, including 27 independents.