Turkish voters yesterday voted in municipal elections, with all eyes on Istanbul, the national “jewel” that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to pry away from the opposition.
Erdogan’s road to power in Turkey began in Istanbul when he was elected mayor of the city straddling Europe and Asia in 1994. His allies held the city until Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) wrested control five years ago.
As soon as Erdogan clinched re-election as president in May last year — he has been head of state since 2014 — he launched the campaign to reclaim the city of 16 million people.
Photo: AP
“Istanbul is the jewel, the treasure and the apple of our country’s eye,” the 70-year-old leader said at a rally in the city recently.
“Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,” Erman Bakirci, a pollster from Konda Research and Consultancy, recalled Erdogan once saying.
The Turkish president has named former Turkish minister of environment and urbanization Murat Kurum as his candidate.
The latest polls show that Imamoglu — who edged out an Erdogan ally in the 2019 election that gained international headlines — has a slight lead.
However, analysts caution that opinion polls in Turkey have been wrong before and that the outcome is far from certain.
The 2019 vote was controversially annulled, but Imamoglu won the rerun vote by an even greater margin, which turned him into an instant hero for Turkey’s notoriously fractured opposition and a formidable foe for Erdogan.
Observers say that if Imamoglu managed to retain the Istanbul mayor’s seat, he would be the main challenger to the ruling party in the next presidential elections, set for 2028.
Erdogan has thrown all his energy into campaigning for his candidate. The city has been plastered with posters showing Erdogan and Kurum together.
On Saturday, Erdogan appeared at three campaign rallies in the city, pressing his message that Imamoglu, whose name he never mentions, is a “part-time mayor” consumed by his presidential ambitions.
“Istanbul has been left to its own devices these past five years. We hope to save it from disaster,” he said before heading to prayer at the famed Hagia Sophia mosque.
Imamoglu has focused his campaign on local issues and defended his achievements in office.
“Every vote you give to the CHP will mean more metros, creches, green spaces, social benefits and investment,” he has said.
About 61 million voters were to choose mayors across Turkey’s 81 provinces, as well as provincial council members and other local officials.
The opposition has been fractured ahead of the polls, in contrast with the local polls five years ago.
For example, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, the third largest in the 600-seat parliament, is fielding two candidates for Istanbul mayor, whereas in the 2019 race it agreed to stay out of the vote to implicitly support the opposition.
Istanbul’s ballot paper listed 49 candidates and was 97cm long.
Observers say that wins for his candidates in the main cities would embolden Erdogan.
“If he manages to regain Istanbul and Ankara, Erdogan will see it as encouragement to modify the constitution to stand in 2028,” said Bayram Balci, a researcher at the Centre for International Study and Research at Sciences Po university in Paris.
Polls opened at 7am in the east of the country and were due to close at 5pm in the west, including Istanbul.
The first estimates were expected to be released late yesterday.
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