Istanbul Elections Fuel Hope for Turkish Democracy, but an Uphill © 2019 IAI Battle Awaits by Sinan Ekim Last Sunday’s re-run of Istanbul’s been administered by either the AKP or mayoral elections delivered a its ideological forerunners. ISSN 2532-6570 thundering defeat to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) A more important reason is financial. and its candidate Binali Yıldırım, As Turkey’s economic powerhouse, resulting in the stunning electoral Istanbul accounts for 40 per cent of triumph of Ekrem İmamoğlu from the Turkey’s 850 billion US dollar economy country’s main opposition Republican and had a municipal budget of 7.3 Peoples’ Party (CHP). billion US dollars last year,1 exceeding the combined budget of multiple This was İmamoğlu’s second victory, ministries. The AKP has used these having already won the same contest funds to sustain patronage networks in on 31 March. The AKP contested the the past, funnelling money via lucrative outcome at the time, citing organised contracts to pro-government circles. irregularities and fraud. After recounts in several districts, Turkey’s electoral In his seventeen-day tenure as mayor council (YSK) invalidated the results before the YSK overturned his victory, and called for a repeat – effectively İmamoğlu had started to uncover buckling under pressure from Turkish cases of corruption and nepotism,2 President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who did not want to accept defeat. 1 Melvyn Ingleby, “Cracks Are Deepening in Erdoğan’s Ruling Party”, in The Atlantic, 22 April 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ Istanbul is “special” for Erdoğan for international/archive/2019/04/istanbul- several reasons. It is both his personal erdogan-political-career-akp/587698. and political home, having launched 2 Ayla Jean Yackley, “Istanbul’s Opposition his own political career as the city’s Candidate Urges Supporters to Retain Faith in Ballot Box”, in Al-Monitor, 23 May 2019, http:// mayor in 1994. Since then, Istanbul had almon.co/37n5. Sinan Ekim is Junior Researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). IAI COMMENTARIES 19 | 41 - JUNE 2019 IAI COMMENTARIES 1 Istanbul Elections Fuel Hope for Turkish Democracy, but an Uphill Battle Awaits threatening to unravel the AKP’s Much of it has to do with the country’s patronage networks and costing economic situation – the plummeting Erdoğan a crucial pillar of support that value of its national currency, soaring he had built up over the past twenty- inflation, skyrocketing prices of five years. basic food staples and record levels of youth unemployment. In fact, the This attempt to invalidate the election AKP’s religious electioneering has results massively backfired. underplayed how much the party’s © 2019 IAI popularity had depended on booming Last Sunday, İmamoğlu was able to growth and guaranteeing prosperity to transform his razor-thin margin of those classes that had been neglected less than one per cent on 31 March economically – not only politically and to a resounding landslide of nine culturally, as the “national survival” per cent, securing 54 per cent of the discourse insists – under pre-AKP vote against Yıldırım’s 45 per cent. administrations, lifting them into the He emerged victorious in 28 out of middle-class. Istanbul’s 39 districts, including in such ISSN 2532-6570 conservative districts as Beykoz, Fatih Now beset with widespread economic and Üsküdar that had hitherto been the anxiety, the electorate had less interest AKP’s strongholds. in listening to Erdoğan’s incendiary exclamations, and even started to blame How and why this became possible the party for the country’s problems. carries important lessons for both the incumbent and the opposition. Against this, İmamoğlu offered politics of reconciliation. Instead of further The electorate is clearly fed up deepening the city’s fault-lines, he with Erdoğan’s polarising identity- campaigned on the importance of politics. The president’s trademark bringing people together – captured discourse of national survival3 – which in his now-trademark slogan, “we are involves campaigning on fear and great together”. casting external and internal critics as threats to the nation – had always In addition to his pledges to end hate delivered results. It had helped secure speech and the scapegoating of the a parliamentary majority in the snap city’s ethnic and religious minorities, elections of November 2015, for İmamoğlu also offered actionable example, and led Erdoğan to emerge policy proposals on the city’s problems, triumphant from the constitutional outlining how he would usher in an referendum of April 2017. era of greater transparency and rule of law after twenty-five years of waste In both the March and the June and corruption and start to heal the elections, however, these tactics fell flat. population’s economic woes.4 3 Ishaan Tharoor, “The Political Trend That’s 4 Merve Tahiroglu and Aykan Erdemir, “Why More Important Than ‘Populism’”, in The Istanbul’s Rerun Is a Battle for the Soul of Turkey”, Washington Post, 16 February 2018, http://wapo. in openDemocracy, 14 June 2019, https://www. st/2o3cKZx. opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/ IAI COMMENTARIES 19 | 41 - JUNE 2019 IAI COMMENTARIES 2 Istanbul Elections Fuel Hope for Turkish Democracy, but an Uphill Battle Awaits Crucially, İmamoğlu refrained from exclusively consist of CHP supporters. constant AKP-bashing, despite the AKP’s best efforts to drag him into its The fact that the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ usual identity-based electioneering. Democratic Party (HDP) did not field Erdoğan’s reactions to İmamoğlu’s its own mayor, and that the HDP’s dispute with the governor of Ordu at the jailed leader Selahattin Demirtaş city’s airport is telling in this respect.5 exhorted Kurdish voters to support the CHP candidate, was key in © 2019 IAI By insisting that İmamoğlu should carrying İmamoğlu to victory. So were apologise or “the courts will decide” his supporters of the İyi “Good” Party, fate, Erdoğan tried to provoke defiance. the CHP’s coalition partners in the The same logic underpinned Yıldırım’s elections. İmamoğlu even received constant interruption of İmamoğlu the backing of a significant number during their televised debate on 16 June of supporters from AKP and its ultra- – which was another effort to goad him nationalist ally, Nationalist Movement into an aggressive exchange –, as well Party (MHP). as Erdoğan’s insinuating that İmamoğlu ISSN 2532-6570 had connections to Fethullah Gülen, an The most important outcome of Islamist cleric whom Erdoğan blames İmamoğlu’s triumph is ending an for the failed coup attempt of July 2016. era in Turkish politics in which Erdoğan had seemed unstoppable, and İmamoğlu did not fall into the trap. This emboldening an opposition that had disarmed Erdoğan, who had capitalised remained fractured for much of the on such reactions from the opposition past seventeen years. After 23 June, it in the past. Such hits had provided an is difficult to argue that Turkish politics excellent pretext for him to whip up suffers from an opposition vacuum – a fears that an opposition victory would spirit that will hopefully be channelled mean a return to the status quo ante, through the coming years into 2023, when the conservative Turks were when the next parliamentary and effectively shunned from Turkish social presidential elections are scheduled. and political life. Not facing re-election for four years, These tactics created a profile for Erdoğan should ideally push for İmamoğlu as a unifying figure as well normalisation, releasing the tens of as a competent administrator. He was thousands of prisoners that are in jail able to build a broad coalition that far on spurious charges, dismantling the exceeded the scale of support that had system of cronyism that has come to rallied behind last year’s presidential govern most transactions in Turkey’s hopeful Muharrem İnce. Of course, business circles and introducing İmamoğlu’s winning coalition did not measures to elevate the country’s minorities to an equal footing with why-istanbuls-rerun-is-a-battle-for-the-soul- its Sunni Turkish majority. Extending of-turkey. his congratulations to İmamoğlu on 5 “Ordu’da VIP tartışması”, in Haberturk, 6 June social media was a good first step – so 2019, https://www.haberturk.com/ordu-da-vip- tartismasi-2485453. was his first appearance in parliament, IAI COMMENTARIES 19 | 41 - JUNE 2019 IAI COMMENTARIES 3 Istanbul Elections Fuel Hope for Turkish Democracy, but an Uphill Battle Awaits where he vowed to make adjustments back. This could easily play into the in line with “the messages given by the leadership’s hands, allowing them to people”.6 argue that the opposition is trying to outsource responsibility. Erdoğan could also crank up the intensity of his authoritarianism, Moving forward, İmamoğlu’s success however. The trial of Osman Kavala, a should be institutionalised. This is Turkish businessman that is accused crucial, if the opposition is adamant © 2019 IAI of attempting to overthrow Erdoğan’s in repeating last Sunday’s success on government during the 2013 Gezi Park a nationwide scale in 2023. Any action protests, that took place a day after the or rhetoric that demonises women mayoral vote and did not result in his with headscarves or belittles the release, demonstrates that Erdoğan conservative values of traditional AKP- could in fact go the other way.7 voters – which have unfortunately come to be expected from Turkey’s One should therefore be circumspect social democrats – will immediately about how far Erdoğan will let this backfire, emptying İmamoğlu’s ISSN 2532-6570 upset challenge his rule. The AKP still unifying message of any substance. commands a majority in Istanbul’s municipal council. It is not unthinkable It is certainly not possible to say that for Erdoğan to instruct his foot-soldiers Turkey is a healthy democracy.