Türkiye’s municipal election remains approximately one month away, but the political parties have been running low-intensity campaigns. In other words, we have not yet witnessed strongly worded statements, serious alienation or significant polarization – an absence of the “survival” discourse.
Nonetheless, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to visit the provinces. Even Özgür Özel, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairperson, has launched the municipal election campaign of the main opposition, which took a long time to finalize its candidate lists. At the same time, mayoral candidates have been making their speeches and criticizing their opponents.
Yet the municipal election campaign remains highly fragmented – as opposed to the presidential and parliamentary elections in May 2023. That is mainly because almost all political parties fielded their own candidates (instead of forming electoral alliances) in an attempt to establish how they should expect to perform in 2028. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party)-Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) alliance and the CHP’s limited collaborations with the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), and the Workers’ Party (TIP) remain the obvious exceptions.
There is little doubt that the CHP’s partnership with the YSP (whose negotiations were transparent yet its nature remains a mystery) will be a hot topic on the campaign trail. Indeed, the governing alliance has already started calling the “urban agreement” between the two movements the “Qandil agreement” – a reference to the PKK terrorist organization’s stronghold in northern Iraq. That Good Party (IP) Chairperson Meral Akşener targets the CHP-YSP partnership as well suggests that the People’s Alliance isn’t alone in taking jabs at the main opposition party. In other words, the IP, the Victory Party (ZP), the Homeland Party (MP), the Felicity Party (SP), the Future Party (GP) and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) have no choice but to attack CHP-affiliated candidates to survive. Failure to take that step could lead to their elimination from the political arena – as Erdoğan has warned.
Opposition fragmentation
Another reason why the campaign remains fragmented is that the opposition parties haven’t fully recovered from their May 2023 defeat and are still looking to assign blame to each other for what happened.
The main opposition party replaced its chairperson, but the painful process of candidate selection appears to have overshadowed the new leadership’s “change” agenda. At this time, the dispute between one group, which is waiting for the night of March 31, and another group, which is waiting for the morning after the municipal election, has surpassed what Mr. Özel calls “a disgruntled few.” Indeed, former CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has not retired from politics, could easily stage a comeback on April 1.
The fear of losing 11 metropolitan municipalities (including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir) compels the main opposition party to look for its 2019 base and to consolidate it. Since the alliances of 2019 and 2023 have dissolved, the pro-CHP media’s warnings against the potential victory of the governing alliance are likely to fall on deaf ears.
Meanwhile, President Erdoğan portrays the CHP as a political movement riddled with infighting and reminds the main opposition base that they, too, have a choice – which eliminates the possibility of polarization between two rival groups. Anti-Erdoğanism, which has already weakened, loses its remaining power due to that inclusive discourse. Moreover, CHP members themselves charge their own movement with “fragmentation” and “corruption.”
The main opposition party would like to create a duality between their candidates and the governing alliance’s candidates. The problem is that the CHP leadership doesn’t quite know how. The bottom line is that the CHP could not create a discourse capable of consolidating its base or chipping away at the respective bases of other opposition parties. Indeed, the CHP’s mayoral candidate in Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, talks about himself and the rest – which is both ineffective and problematic. One cannot help but think that he already accepted defeat and is merely getting ready to claim that he did reasonably well against such powerful opponents. That would obviously be meaningless.
Kılıçdaroğlu, who formed the “table for six,” received more than 50% of the vote in Istanbul in May 2023. Imamoğlu is running the same campaign as in 2019, but the circumstances have changed. If the remaining opposition parties hold on to their voters, the incumbent could be upset by the polling data that lands on his desk over the next days and weeks. If that happens, Istanbul’s mayor could end up joining those folks within the main opposition party that are waiting for the morning of April 1.
