The Justice and Development Party (AKP) of current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suffered a historic defeat in Turkey’s local elections on Sunday, in which far from regaining the metropolitan mayoralty in the country’s three major cities – Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir – the opposition CHP party not only consolidated its dominance but also even expanded its electoral base.
With turnout almost 6 points lower than in the 2019 municipal elections at just 78.5%, 61.4 million voters were called to the polls on Sunday to elect their municipal representatives, mayors and village heads (muhtar) in Turkey’s 81 provinces, among them 31 metropolitan mayoralties including Istanbul, where incumbent Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu not only reaffirmed his victory of five years ago but also pulled more than 11 points ahead of his main AKP rival Murat Kurum, who obtained less than 40% of the vote.
In the capital Ankara, incumbent CHP metropolitan mayor Mansur Yavaş also significantly widened his lead from 51% of the vote in 2019 to more than 60% in this election, while AKP candidate Turgut Altınok trailed with less than 32% of the support. In the country’s third largest city, the CHP’s new candidate for Izmir, Cemil Tugay, also retained the metropolitan mayoralty although losing 10% of the electorate’s support compared to incumbent mayor and party colleague Tunç Soyer, receiving just under 49% of the vote.
AKP loses more than 2 million votes
With 100% of the votes counted, Turkey’s main opposition party thus consolidates its overall nationwide victory over Erdoğan’s AKP, which it outpolled by more than 2 points, achieving its greatest victory in 40 years. The Turkish president’s party not only fails to achieve its ambition of winning back the country’s three main metropolitan mayoralties, but also loses more than 2 million votes and drops 7 points to 35.5%, the worst result since its foundation in 2001: just that 7% of extra votes were received by the CHP, which gained more than 4 million new votes compared to the 2019 municipal elections.
The political map if one compares yesterday’s results with the local elections of 5 years ago is certainly bleak for the AKP, which loses practically all the mayoralties in Turkey’s western provinces capitals – the most populated – except Kocaeli, Sakarya and Düzce, while several mayoralties on the western Black Sea coast that were in the hands of its MHP allies, also go to the CHP. In Central Anatolia, the AKP also lost two key capitals, Sivas and Yozgat, to the nationalist Büyük Birlik Partisi (Great Unity Party) and the re-founded Welfare Party (Refah Partisi).
In the cities of southeastern Anatolia, the AKP’s loss of the important metropolitan mayoralty of Şanlıurfa is no less significant, while other provincial capitals in the region such as Muş and Ağrı are won by the Kurdish nationalists of the DEM party, a direct heir of the HDP which contested the 2019 elections. The only victory for the AKP that could be cited is in Hatay, one of the provinces hardest hit by the terrible earthquake of 2023, where its candidate Mehmet Öntürk managed to finally prevail and win by a very narrow margin over his CHP rival after an election night in which the metropolitan mayoralty of Antakya was constantly changing hands during the vote count.
Reactions to the election results
In his first speech to AKP supporters after the defeat, Erdoğan – who days earlier announced that these would be his last elections – focused his remarks on the maturity of Turkish democracy after an uneventful election, and while acknowledging that the goals had not been achieved, he stressed that “this is a turning point, but it is not the end“.
“The winner of these elections is democracy, the will of the nation, whatever the political views of the voters are. We have concluded the 31 March elections with a maturity befitting our democracy, without any incident that cast a shadow over the elections,” insisted the Turkish president, who thanked all AKP delegates and supporters for their efforts, despite admitting that “we have paid a high price“.
Turkey’s new opposition leader, newly elected CHP chairman Özgür Özel, said the results of Sunday’s Turkish elections are a clear message that voters want a “new politics” in Turkey. “Today, voters have decided to balance the disproportionate local power of the government in what was the first election of the second century of the Turkish Republic,” Özel said in a press appearance. “Today, voters have decided to establish a new politics, and to change the landscape of Turkey after 22 years (of Erdoğan’s AKP rule),” he said.
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As a history lover, Pablo Gómez was captivated by Turkey from the first day he visited it in 2006: he got married there, has a house there… and has since become an expert on Turkey’s current affairs. With a long experience in media, he has been at the helm of hispanatolia.com since 2011.
