Two searing defeats for Recep Erdogan, perhaps the heaviest in his more than 20 years in power, arriving at a time when the Turkish president thought he no longer had rivals. At administrative elections that were held on Sunday in Turkey by the AKP, Erdogan's party was in fact unable to conquer the two main cities, Istanbul and Ankara, where once again it was the Republican People's Party (CHP), the country's main opposition force, but also lost in many of Turkey's largest cities. The most burning defeat, however, was precisely the one that took place in the capital, where Erdogan was born and where he began his political rise. “Whoever governs Istanbul governs Turkey”, has always maintained the president who in recent months had spent a lot of effort to reconquer Istanbul, also being able to count on the almost total absence of pluralism, control of the media and a fragmented opposition.
Elections in Türkiye: Erdogan loses in all major cities
On Sunday, 58 million Turkish citizens were called to the polls to elect the mayors of over 4 thousand cities. Everyone's eyes were focused on the two main cities, Ankara and Istanbul, both in opposition hands and which Erdogan hoped to regain to further consolidate his power in Turkey, where he has been president since 2014. Instead, the Republican People's Party (CHP) ), was reconfirmed as the government of both cities, obtaining a total of 37,7% of the votes, against 35,5 percent for the AKP, Erdogan's conservative party. Turnout was 78%, seven points lower than in the 2019 elections.
Ad Ankara CHP candidate Mansur Yavas obtained 60,3% of the votes against 31,7% for Turgut Altinok supported by the AKP. TO Istanbul the CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, former mayor of the city and main opposition leader at the national level, won with 51 percent of the votes, while the AKP candidate Murat Kurum stopped at 39,6%. In the capital, people took to the streets shouting: "Turkey was born secularist and will remain so." Both Imamoglu and Yavas are considered prospects Erdogan's challengers in the 2028 presidential elections.
“Today our voters made a very important decision, they decided to establish a new policy in Türkiye“said Ozgur Ozel, the secretary of the main opposition party. “The CHP has achieved a historic result and has decided how to govern our country and our municipalities,” added Ozel, in a speech broadcast on TV.
“We won,” he said Ekrem Imamoglu. “The people of Istanbul gave us the authority,” Imamoglu said as he declared victory. “You have opened the door to the future, democracy won“, said Imamoglu, thanking the voters and criticizing “the authoritarian system” of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As for the other cities, the CHP also won a Smyrna, Bursa and Adana, over the entire Aegean and Mediterranean coast, conquering 35 cities out of 81, while the pro-Kurdish party dominated in the south-east. The AKP maintained control over much of central Anatolia, such as Konya, Kayseri, Erzurum, and in the Black Sea, in the cities of Rize and Trabzon.
Erdogan: “We didn't get what we wanted”
"Unfortunately we couldn't get the result we wanted in the elections,” commented Erdogan, during a speech from the headquarters of his AKP party in Ankara, broadcast by state TV TRT. Erdogan admitted defeat, after his party's candidates lost in Ankara and Istanbul and in all the major cities of the country. “God willing, we will continue our path by winning,” added the Turkish president.
