As for the March 31, 2019 mayoral election, for the June 23, 2019 rerun, some 84% of the roughly 10.5 million Istanbul voters went to the polls. With 99% of all votes counted, they elected oppositional candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu (*1970) as the new mayor of greater Istanbul.
In comparison with the March election, annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council under massive pressure from President Erdogan, in June, the CHP candidate Imamoglu increased his lead over the AKP candidate Yildirim from 13,729 to almost 800,000 votes. This is a disaster for both President Erdogan and his AKP party, which ruled Istanbul for 25 years.
In fact, Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his political career in Istanbul as mayor elected in 1994. Later, he was elected prime minister and then president, totally dominating the Turkish political landscape with his Justice and Development Party (AKP). After years of real economic and social progress, his AKP as become the party of injustice as well as political and economic crisis.
The Turkish Lira is in free fall, inflation around 20% and the official unemployment rate above 13%. Thousands of real and imagined oppositional Turks have been jailed. In this context, the AKP candidate, Binali Yildirim (*1955), a former prime minister and AKP co-founder, managed only to win 45% of the vote in comparison with the 54% for Ekrem Imamoglu.
Many times during his career, including during the 2019 Istanbul mayoral campaign, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey. The city is Turkey’s most important economic region. Greater Istanbul has 15 millions inhabitants, almost 20% of the country’s overall population. The city’s contribution to Turkey’s GDP is roughly one third. Istanbul’s municipal budget is around $4 billion.
For those economic reasons alone, Ekrem Imamoglu is a potential national rival for President Erdogan. In addition, Mayor Imamoglu is not a typical CHP politician. Journalists covering his campaign have described him as charismatic. He is electable not only for secular voters, liberals and moderates, but also for conservatives, religious voters as well as the Kurdish minority.
From 2014 until 2019, Ekrem Imamoglu was the mayor of Beylikdüzü, a western district of Istanbul. He was unknown to a larger public until the 2018/19 campaign which ended with his two surprise victories. His very vague slogan was Everything will be fine (Her Şey Çok Güzel Olacak). His campagin was not just inclusive and moderate, he can also appeal to voters emotions. Ekrem Imamoglu has now several years to show that he can produce results. Does he have the substance to rise to fame on the national level, being able to unite the opposition and defeat Erdogan in the next presidential election?
The central government could do a lot to sabotage the effors by the newly elected Istanbul mayor. However, this would rarely be appreciated by the Istanbul voters.
In March, Binali Yildirim first and prematurely declared himself as the winner before (successfully) contesting the result of the election. However, yesterday, despite a shady campaign once again, he was quick to acknowledge his defeat. Later in the evening, even President Erdogan twittered: “I congratulate Ekrem Imamoglu who has won the election based on preliminary results.”
Anyway, it was impossible for the AKP to cheat in Istanbul because of the many independent and party affiliated observers of the election, including the Turkish NGO Vote and Beyond (Oy ve ötesi), with the ability to detect any voter fraud.
Is this the beginning of a new phase in Turkish politics? Erdogan, his family and many of his AKP politicians are corrupt. They have to hold on to their power. They cannot afford to have an independent justice system and independent media. They know they would eventually end up in jail. On the other hand, the economic and financial system has become shaky because Erdogan, his AKP and affiliated opportunists have undermined the confidence of enterpreneurs and investors, both domestic and foreign, in Turkey’s future.
Ironically, the election of Ekrem Imamoglu has (at least today) helped the Turkish Lira because the markets think that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, as I wrote in March, the Turkish opposition is alive. And not just in Istanbul. In 2019, most majors cities, including Ankara (the capital), Antalya, Adana, Mersin and Izmir, fell into the hands of the opposition.
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Photograph of Ekrem İmamoğlu by Voice of America (public domain), 2018.
Article added on June 24, 2019 at 14:31 Berlin time.
