The Trends in politics of Türkiye – Opinion News

By Anshumaan Mishra and Dr Aparaajita Pandey

A year ago, the Turkish President Erdogan was re – elected to the Presidential office and on Sunday as Turkey voted in their local elections; the voters made their displeasure with Erdogan quite clear.

CHP, which is the Turkish Republican Party and the largest opposition party to AKP which is the present party ruling the state, won resounding victories in Istanbul, and in the five biggest cities of Turkey. CHP managed to accumulate a massive 37 per cent mandate which is the highest for one party since 1977. Cities like Ankara, Izmir, Busra, and Adana clearly indicated that they are neither happy nor satisfied with their President. This is symptomatic of the rapidly deteriorating approval ratings of Erdogan’s policies. This was President Erdogan’s third term and even though he has announced that he does not plan to stand again for the office in 2028’s Presidential elections, he has not been able to assuage the suspicions that the voters have about his term.

In the past the Turkish regime has been critiqued for its handling of the Covid and most of all its economic policies. Turkey has been suffering from one of the highest rates of inflation that they have suffered through in decades. If one were to analyse the factors that have led to the voters picking CHP over AKP, economic policies make the bedrock of dissatisfaction in Turkey. While the pandemic already stymied economic growth around the world, the perceived nonchalance of the AKP led governments towards the financial troubles of the everyday Turkish citizen led to a disenchantment with the government.

It is also important to observe how the opposition campaigned for these elections. Ekrem Imamoglu who is emerging as the biggest challenger to Reccep Erdogan’s title has many traits akin to the current President. Like Erdogan, Ekrem also does not boast of a political legacy, he also talks about being an average man who is trying to change the country for the better. Ekrem, also is the mayor of Istanbul, quite like the President was at one point. These similarities do give a sense of the level playing field on which the two can be judged for their political rhetoric, their manifestos, their vision, for their terms as the mayor, and possibly for their future political careers.

The strategy that Ekrem has followed is to point out not only the economic woes that have plagued the people of Turkey, but also highlight the speculated democratic backsliding that has taken place under Erdogan. The west has time and again accused Erdogan of pushing for greater Islamisation of Turkey, which has for the past century has projected a vision of a cosmopolitan mediterranean nation that resonates more with Europe and less with Asia. While this narrative could have been tweaked from time to time based on the compulsions of domestic politics, Turkey has largely been seen and acknowledged as a “progressive” country. Ekrem has talked about his victory as the victory of not just CHP but also of that of the true cosmopolitan nature of Turkey, a victory of democracy over authoritarianism, and an escape from populist politics.

The Kurdish voters have also played a pivotal role in the result of this election result. The CHP have made coalitions across the board, and the Kurdish voters chose to cast their vote against the AKP candidates and show faith in the CHP candidates who were standing from the Kurdish territories. This led to CHP gaining the Kurdish vote, which would originally have gone to the Pro-Kurdish party. The shifting of this vote to CHP had not been calculated by the AKP.

CHP and Ekrem have been vocal about this election being a threshold of change for Turkish politics, saying that, “a new era of politics will bloom into a new era of Politics”. While the defeat has been resounding for the AKP in these elections, and Erdogan did accept this defeat, he also did make a statement saying, “this is a turning point for us, not the end”. If this statement were to be taken as an indication of what is to come, one could expect some change in the economic policies of Turkey as well as a change in political rhetoric.

The Turkish social identity often finds its roots in the Ottoman identity and when the yarn of Turkish nationalism is laid threadbare, one eventually goes back to the Treaty of Sevres. The recent shift in that identity from being largely ethnic and historic to being defined by religion has not gone down well with all of Turkey. This also played a role in the current election results where the tenets of Turkish identity were evaluated by the voters and the CHP rhetoric won. It will be interesting to see how the AKP re-emerges in the future.

About the authors: Anshumaan Mishra is a psephologist, and Dr Aparaajita Pandey is a scholar of International Relations.  

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