This Sunday, March 31, over 61.4 million Turkish citizens will vote to elect local authorities for the next five years - mayors in all 81 provincial cities, in hundreds of districts and municipalities and tens of thousands of neighborhoods and hamlets, as well as members of provincial and municipal councils.
The voting will take place in a total of 206 thousand polling stations in the country, which will be located in school buildings. Monday will be a day off for students.
About 12 million of the voters are registered in the metropolis of Istanbul. For the first time in these elections, 1,032,610 young people will vote. According to the registers of the Supreme Election Commission (SEC), over 210 thousand Turkish voters are originally from Bulgaria. In the local elections, only Turkish citizens who have a permanent residence status in the country have the right to vote.
According to Turkish electoral law, voting is mandatory, and those who do not show up to the polls are fined. In the parliamentary and presidential elections in May 2023. the penalty for not voting was 300 Turkish liras (about 9 euros).
According to the Turkish Ministry of Interior, 594,000 police, gendarmerie, coast guard and volunteers will provide security on election day.
The situation
In recent days, the active pre-election atmosphere in the 16 million-strong metropolis of Istanbul has made a visible impression.
Election stands, posters of political parties and posters of mayoral candidates can be seen everywhere in the city. Buses and minibuses with musical sound systems roam the streets of the metropolis, followed by riot police cars, and activists hand out leaflets and campaign for one candidate or another. The messages on the posters around the city are also impressive - some focus on the economic difficulties in the country, others - on the situation in Gaza, others - on the problems with migrants from Syria and African countries. The campaign does not bypass TikTok and other social networks.
In terms of administrative division, Istanbul consists of 39 municipalities, some of which, such as Esenyurt, have a population of 1 million people.
Local elections in Turkey, as a rule, have a different dynamic than general elections, in which the burden falls on parties and coalitions. In local elections, local problems and the abilities of local candidates come to the fore. This means that a voter, regardless of his party affiliation, can show a reflex identical to that of an electorate belonging to a different political segment. It happens that a right-leaning voter votes for a left-wing party candidate or a secular voter casts his vote for an Islamic-oriented political force.
The Battle for Istanbul
Although elections will be held everywhere in Turkey on Sunday, "March 31 will be the vote for Istanbul", commented sociologist Bekir Agder.
There are a total of 49 mayoral candidates for Istanbul, which is happening for the first time in the recent history of the metropolis.
Last Sunday, March 24, in just one day, over 10 mayoral candidates organized their largest election rallies in Istanbul, which speaks to the importance attached to the metropolis.
The main race in Istanbul will be between Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), who is running for second mandate, and Murat Kurum from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Kurum has the powerful support of President Tayyip Erdogan, who personally and very actively campaigned for Kurum at all the rallies he participated in as the leader of the AKP.
The AKP is the largest political force in the country, with around 12 million members.
Unlike the local elections in 2019, the election campaign this time is very strongly dominated by Erdogan's will to definitely win back power over Istanbul from the hands of the opposition in the person of the current mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Erdogan's influence
According to information from the presidential press service, Erdogan participated in the election rallies in support of Kurum in over 40 districts of the country. However, the latest rally on Sunday (March 24 - b.aut.), at which Erdogan gave an hour-long speech, was attended by about 650,000 people, which is much fewer than previous rallies that gathered a million to a million and a half supporters.
In the 2023 parliamentary elections, the AKP won 36.3 percent of the vote. Erdogan's goal now is not only to maintain that result, but also to defeat Imamoglu at all costs and take Istanbul from the AKP, observers say.
The president has directed all resources towards this goal. Ministers in Erdogan's cabinet, such as Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, a former governor of Istanbul, are campaigning at rallies in the metropolis in support of Kurum.
“Seventeen cabinet ministers are in the field of election campaigning as if mobilized for compulsory service”, commented media outlets critical of Erdogan in Turkey.
The AKP videos focus on Erdogan's activities as mayor of Istanbul. Compromising material also emerged in which the Istanbul municipality headed by Ekrem İmamoğlu was accused of corruption, and even launched an investigation into mayors. However, it later turned out that the case refers to a period from 5 years ago.
The previous local elections in 2019 were initially won by Ekrem İmamoğlu from the main opposition HDP, but Erdogan scheduled a repeat of the vote, from which İmamoğlu again emerged victorious, with a lead of over 800,000 votes over the AKP candidate. Then Kurdish voters supported the opposition candidate, which played a decisive role in his victory.
Imamoglu's chances
Imamoglu won 54 percent of the vote in 2019, and is running his election campaign under the slogan “Full Forward”. Unlike at the beginning of the campaign, in recent weeks he has again been conducting a very active election campaign, even his critics admit.
"There are no coalitions now, except for one - everyone against Imamoglu", points out analyst Murat Yetkin, emphasizing that there is sharp political polarization in the country.
The factional fights in the PDP (for and against former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who failed as a presidential candidate in the elections in May last year and was removed from office at the last congress - ed.), the sharp attacks of the PDP's former allies in the opposition election coalition National Alliance, among which in the first place the leader of the "Good Party" Meral Akşener, also undermine İmamoğlu's reputation.
The Kurdish effect
The pro-Kurdish DEM party, which initially nominated two of its mayoral candidates against İmamoğlu, threatening to take away votes for İmamoğlu, announced days before the vote that it would join forces with the main opposition HDP and support its candidates in 22 municipalities of Istanbul. In fact, the decision did not surprise analysts familiar with the topic, as negotiations had been underway for a long time.
In addition, the Kurdish electorate is heterogeneous. There are factions that support Erdogan in the hope that he will solve the Kurdish issue, but there are also many dissatisfied with the AKP's policy of appointing administrators in place of elected mayors in Kurdish municipalities.
“Kurds are the largest population in Istanbul. Everyone is waiting to see who the Kurds in Istanbul will vote for and what they will do. Do you see your strength? "We call on the Kurds in Istanbul to vote for themselves," former Kurdish MP Leyla Zana, winner of the Sakharo Peace Prize, said at a rally in Diyarbakir.
According to the agreement between the HDP and the DEM, the pro-Kurdish party will have deputy mayors in municipalities that the HDP will win, says Kurdish affairs expert Muzaffer Türk.
The support of the Kurds will undoubtedly strengthen Ekrem İmamoğlu's assets, analysts say.
The economic factor
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan "for the first time has opponents against him who are stronger than the ideological, religious and social differences of the AKP electorate and who are a unifying factor for the voters' attitudes," commented freelance analyst Fehim Güçlü, with whom we analyzed the situation before elections.
“These are the economic difficulties, the rising cost of living (the absolute poverty line is around 19 thousand Turkish liras, and the minimum wage is 17 thousand Turkish liras - ed.), low pensions that are being eroded by inflation, the unbearable cost of living, especially for pensioners, who number 15.8 million, the rising cost of medicines, the problems of the healthcare system, unemployment among young people, the devaluation of the Turkish lira, etc. In fact, these are problems that are the result of the AKP government, which has been in power for more than 20 years and the dissatisfaction is directed against it. March 31 will be not only local elections, but also elections in which, for the first time, dissatisfaction with the economic situation will be decisive. This is what I see when I walk the streets,” he added.
The analyst also commented on the lower-than-expected turnout at the AKP rally in Istanbul on Sunday, which he said was unprecedented and disappointing. “I expect Erdogan to campaign for Kurum until the last hours before the vote,” he added.
A shift from Erdogan to Erbakan?
A surprise in Sunday’s vote is likely to come from the New Prosperity Party (NPP) of Fatih Erbakan, son of the late Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, who was Erdogan’s political mentor but later parted ways.
It is an Islamist radical party, a continuation of the Welfare Party of father Erbakan. The PNB unites Islamists dissatisfied with Erdogan's oligarchic policies, in other words, these are the poorer Islamist circles for whom "there is no share in the benefits of the AKP". In the previous elections, the party participated in the Erdogan-Bahçeli coalition - the so-called Republican Alliance. But for the vote on March 31, it demonstratively left the coalition. In two months, it has increased its electorate by 240 thousand new members, the PNB's press organ says in the. "Milli Gazete".
The PNP, which offers a completely different model from the Erdogan government for overcoming the economic crisis, will probably receive more votes than expected throughout the country for this very reason, analysts say.
The party is also gaining approval with its anti-Israeli statements in support of Gaza, accusing the AKP of continuing trade and economic ties with Israel.
Why are the March 31 elections so important?
The Turkish head of state not only likes to often recall the maxim ”who rules Istanbul, rules Turkey”, but also has a strong emotional connection with the city on the Bosphorus. From here, when he won the mayor's post in 1994, his rise began, which brought him to the top of the country's politics and internationally. In his speech after another election victory in May last year Erdogan said that ”the goal of the March 31 elections is to win Istanbul“.
This means that a possible success of Murat Kurum would be an important victory for Erdogan. Especially in the spirit of his plans to draft a new constitution for Turkey, which would allow him to run for a new presidential term. And vice versa - a negative result would be a colossal loss for the president.
If Imamoglu wins the elections again, it will be a source of psychological motivation not only for the HDP and the secular electorate in Istanbul, but also for the opposition-government balance. On the other hand, it will open the way for him to lead the HDP and for his potential candidacy for president in the future, as happened with Erdogan. And vice versa - if it fails in the elections, the opposition will not only lose Istanbul, but will suffer a huge, second psychological defeat after losing the presidential elections in May last year.
What do sociologists say?
According to the results of 9 sociological agencies that publish the arithmetic averages of the results of the surveys, Ekrem Imamoglu leads Murat Kurum with 41.9 percent against 39.8 percent. They are followed by Meral Danış Bektaş from the pro-Kurdish DEM, Bugra Kavurcu from the "Good Party", Mehmet Altınoz from the New Prosperity Party, Azmi Karamahmutoğlu from the Victory Party.
The leading sociological agency Ser-AR gives the main opposition PKK an advantage in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, but in a number of districts such as Edirne, Antalya, Bitlis, Denizli, Ordu, Kars, Malatya, etc. it predicts a "razor-sharp" race.
In the districts where the AKP and the nationalist HDP nominated candidates separately, the opposition PKK has the chance to come to the fore. And in the districts where the New Prosperity Party dominates, it is expected to take away some of the AKP's votes, the agency points out.
Sociologists predict that the vote of voters who hesitate until the last moment will be decisive for the outcome of the elections.
On Sunday, Turkey's most contested and most difficult-to-predict local elections are due. However, they also hold the potential for Turkey, with its 85 million people, to wake up to a different political environment and new political balances on the morning of April 1.
Election day will begin at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., and in the eastern and southeastern provinces an hour earlier - from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The ban on publishing the results is expected to be lifted after 7 p.m.