TURKS will vote next Sunday in local polls as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, buoyed by a strong showing in last year’s general elections, sets his sights on winning back Istanbul.
The secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) seized back control of the city — Turkey’s economic powerhouse — in 2019 for the first time since before Erdogan ruled it as mayor in the 1990s.
Those watershed 2019 elections also saw the opposition win back the capital Ankara and keep power in the crucial Aegean port city of Izmir, shattering Erdogan’s image of political invincibility.
Erdogan has entrusted his former environment minister Murat Kurum to run for mayor of Istanbul in the March 31 election.
He is seeking to avenge the worst political defeat of his two-decade rule, when CHP arch rival Ekrem Imamoglu took the town hall.
The powerful president bounced back last year to win a tough presidential election that came in the throes of an economic crisis and a massive earthquake that claimed more than 53,000 lives in Turkey.
Now, Erdogan has set his sights on winning back Istanbul — the city where he grew up and where he launched his political career as mayor in 1994.
Imamoglu edged out an Erdogan ally in a 2019 election that gained international headlines for being controversially annulled.
He won a re-run vote by a massive margin that turned him into an instant hero for the opposition and a formidable foe for Erdogan.
The 52-year-old is widely seen as the opposition’s best bet at winning back the presidency from Erdogan’s AKP party in 2028.
“Imamoglu is an effective political operator and at this point in time represents one of the very few glimmers of hope for constituents who oppose Erdogan and the AKP,” Anthony Skinner, director of research at geopolitical advisory firm Marlow Global, told AFP.
But last year’s poor general election showing fractured the opposition and prompted the pro-Kurdish DEM Party — the third largest in parliament — to put up its own candidates for next week’s local elections.
This could cost the opposition.