Turkish Authorities do not want to yield Istanbul

I t seemed that the recount of the ballots have not altered the elections’ results, but on May 6, Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Commission decided to cancel the Local Governmental Elections results in Istanbul and hold fresh elections on June 23. The ruling “Justice and Development” political party announced, that there had been “violations of the law”, and submitted to the Supreme Electoral Commission the cancelation for the mayoral election and for holding a new one. The president of the Republic of Turkey announced, that Binali Yildirim, the former Prime Minister of Turkey will continue to be their candidate.  

Ekrem Imamoglu, candidate for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, during the Local Elections campaign  

Immediately after the decision, Turkey’s opposition expressed their dissatisfaction. Ekrem Imamoglu, candidate for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, called on the people not to despair and “not to put down the weapons”. The opposition candidate blamed the Supreme Electoral Commission  for being owned by the press and becoming a tool for them. Imamoglu mentioned that on the same logic the Supreme Commission could also abolish the election result of June 2018, when R. T. Erdogan became President. The oppositional figure called the authorities’ working style “treachery against democracy”.

Meral Aksener, chairman of the Turkey’s opposition nationalist “Good Party” also reacted harshly to this decision. She mentioned, that it violates the rights of Istanbuli citizens, as well as the rights of the citizens voting for the leading AK Party and for the Nationalist Movement Party.

On May 7, the Ministry of Interior reported, that Ali Yerlikaya was appointed as Deputy Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

New elections in Istanbul were quite predictable, as the ruling “Justice and Development” Party first of all raised the issue of Istanbul’s 300 thousand invalid votes, than at the request of AK Party, recounts took place in some of the districts of Istanbul. Despite the efforts, oppositional candidate E. Imamoglu defeated the AKP with a difference of 13000 votes.

Such step of the authorities can be explained by several reasons:

• Istanbul is very important political center and as Erdogan loves to repeat, “Winning Istanbul is like winning the whole of the Turkey”. Erdogan’s political upheaval started quickly after being elected as Istanbul Mayor, which probably does not allow any yield to Istanbul opposition.
• Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey and the main driving power, which provides about 30% of the Turkey’s GDP, also it controls public expenditure. Hence, keeping the control of the city is very important for central authorities.
• There are also some opinions, that the ruling AK Party conducted some illegal projects and to prevent this they cannot afford the city pass to the oppositional People’s Party.

As it was already mentioned, in the upcoming elections, Binali Yildirim will remain the candidate for the ruling AK Party and Ekrem Imamoglu will remain the candidate for the oppositional People’s Party. We hazard a guess, that Imamoglu is more likely to win as opposed to Yildirim, as the defeat of the ruling AK Party was the result of both the latest economic crisis and the intellectuals and minorities’ giving preference to the People’s Party. Also, the ruling parties’ nomination of the not so “charismatic” candidate. Hence, there is a probability, that Imamoglu can win again. It should also be taken into account, that the opposition candidate had also run a successful campaign: he created a character of a charismatic leader and his rating naturally increased after his victory. Of course, we should not forget that the elections will be held on June 23, which will give the current authorities an opportunity to win through various administrative means which includes restrictions of oppositional resources, arrests and electoral frauds.

After the local Government Elections if the ruling AK Party wins, Turkey will remain tense. Such steps from Turkey’s authorities further increase the tension inside the Turkish society leading to polarization and new clashes.