Turkeyâs main opposition party dealt an unexpected blow to Recep Tayyip ErdoÄanâs rule on Sunday with a sweeping victory in Turkeyâs local elections, maintaining control of major cities including the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul, where Ekrem ImamoÄlu secured a second term as mayor.
âMy dear Istanbulites, you opened the door to a new future today,â ImamoÄlu told overjoyed supporters of his opposition Republican Peopleâs Party (CHP) while declaring victory. âStarting from tomorrow, Turkey will be a different Turkey. You opened the door to the rise of democracy, equality and freedom ⦠You ignited hope at the ballot box.â
Favourable turnout continued benefit the opposition as the night wore on, and the CHP secured control of a broad swath of western Turkey and scored wins across more conservative regions next to the Black Sea and central Anatolia, areas traditionally seen as hostile to its policies.
The results quickly became symbolic of dissatisfaction with ErdoÄan, who began rallying his supporters to turn out in local elections immediately after winning the presidency last year.
ErdoÄan was at the forefront of his partyâs campaign to retake Istanbul, holding rallies in the city in the week before the vote and attending prayers at the symbolic Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul the night prior to the ballot.
âThese election results show that voters decided to establish a new politics in Turkey,â said the head of the CHP, Ãzgür Ãzel, addressing the public with tears in his eyes.
In a muted speech to a subdued crowd outside his partyâs headquarters in Ankara, ErdoÄan praised the vote itself rather than the outcome. âRegardless of the results, the winner of this election is primarily democracy,â he said.
âUnfortunately, we couldnât get the result we wanted in local elections ⦠Everything happens for a reason. We will rebuild trust in places where our nation has chosen someone else.â
ErdoÄan addressed most of his comments to the crowd, telling them at one point: âI am madly in love with you.â
ImamoÄlu, the star of Turkeyâs opposition, beat his rival, Murat Kurum, a former bureaucrat and environment minister from ErdoÄanâs Justice and Development party (AKP), by a significant margin in Turkeyâs largest city, where his mayorship has become a thorn in the side of the Turkish president. With a majority of votes counted, the Istanbul mayor was on course to beat Kurum by 10%.
Across Istanbul, drivers honked car horns in celebration, while videos showed jubilant people tearing down a poster featuring Kurumâs face.
âThese results will put ImamoÄlu and the CHP at the centre of Turkish politics,â said Yusuf Can, an analyst with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
ErdoÄan demanded a rerun of ImamoÄluâs initial election victory in 2019, leading to a resounding second win for the opposition mayor. The result vaulted him from a minor municipal official to a role as the main challenger to ErdoÄanâs rule. His second resounding victory is expected to set ImamoÄlu on the path to a presidential run.
The mayorâs campaign for a second term proved challenging. Election insiders estimated that ErdoÄanâs AKP outspent ImamoÄlu and the CHP by a factor of three in Istanbul, the countryâs financial and cultural centre, where ErdoÄan occupied the position of mayor 30 years ago.
Despite ErdoÄanâs name not appearing on the ballot, voters across the country seized the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with his policies, many citing Turkeyâs struggling economy as their motivation for voting for the opposition or a rising collection of smaller parties further to the right than the AKP.
âItâs a resounding message,â said Selim Sazak, the head of Sanda Global, an Ankara-based consultancy that advised several campaigns during the local election cycle. âThe voters are telling the government that the economy is really hurting them.â
Their message, he added, was that either ImamoÄlu or Ankaraâs mayor, Mansur YavaÈ, could have turned out a similar sweeping victory for the opposition if the CHP had selected them as presidential candidates last year.
The AKP selected the former environment minister Murat Kurum, born and raised in Ankara, to challenge the charismatic Istanbul mayor for a seat that ErdoÄan held from 1994 to 1998, only furthering the impression that ErdoÄan sought to bring Istanbul back within the central governmentâs sphere of influence.
However, some of Kurumâs recent jabs at Ä°mamoÄlu backfired, notably his decision to tell the latter that he should âgo and manage a meatball shopâ, in reference to a popular Turkish staple.
ImamoÄlu made plenty of use of Kurumâs comments on the campaign trail as evidence that his challenger was out of touch with the average Istanbulite, telling a crowd of supporters: âDo you know why I love this election? Both the meatball maker and the minister are equal [at the ballot box].â
ErdoÄanâs efforts to place himself at the forefront of the fight to retake Istanbul also backfired with many of its residents. Turkey has been plagued by an economic crisis linked to his policies, one that has hit the populations of major cities the hardest.
âThat son of a bitch raised inflation himself. Thatâs enough,â said one voter, Burhan, who asked that his family name be withheld. He said he had previously voted for the AKP but opted for ImamoÄlu this time as he remained unhappy about the lack of economic progress since ErdoÄanâs victory last year.
After winning re-election, ErdoÄan appointed a new finance minister and central bank governor, who introduced reforms and austerity measures that some observers considered essential, but which left much of the public worse off as inflation continued to rise.