President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party hopes to take back Istanbul city hall

The head of state is heavily involved in the run-up to Sunday’s vote, which is crucial in the run-up to the 2028 presidential election.

It is a local election with a test value for the power in place. Some 61 million voters are called to the polls on Sunday March 31 in Turkey to choose their mayors. The president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has personally invested in the campaign, particularly in Istanbul, where he hopes to wash away the affront of 2019, when the opposition took the town hall of the country’s main city from his party.

On Saturday, on the eve of the election, Recep Tayyip Erdogan held three meetings in Istanbul, described as “jewel” and of “national treasure”. He was mayor of the city in the 1990s, before taking over as head of Turkey. His candidate for Istanbul is an uncharismatic former minister, Murat Kurum, whose portrait generally appears alongside his on electoral banners.

“Istanbul has been abandoned to its fate for the past five years. We aspire to save it from disaster”, launched the Head of State, before going to pray at the Sainte-Sophie mosque. He portrayed the outgoing councilor, Ekrem Imamoglu, as an ambitious man with little concern for his city, a “part-time mayor” who would be obsessed with the presidency. In the event of a renewal on the banks of the Bosphorus, the opponent will appear as a favorite for the 2028 presidential election. The polls gave him the advantage at the end of the week.

The opposition divided

At 70, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has put all his weight as a statesman into the campaign. He worked his country of 85 million inhabitants alongside the candidates of his Islamo-conservative party, the AKP. He held up to four meetings a day and shared iftar every evening, the meal to break the Ramadan fast.

Unlike the 2019 municipal elections, the opposition is leaving in dispersed order. The main party, the CHP, a social democratic party, failed to obtain the support of other movements. The pro-Kurdish Dem party, in particular, is going it alone, at the risk of favoring the ruling party, itself threatened in places by the rise of the Islamist Yeniden Refah party.

In a country faced with 67% official inflation over twelve months and the weakening of its currency, voters could be tempted to give the advantage to the opponents of the head of state. For observers, the level of participation, traditionally high, will play a determining role. Particularly in Istanbul, if voters turn out in smaller numbers to support Ekrem Imamoglu.

“If Imamoglu manages to hold on, he will have won his battle within the opposition to impose himself” as leader for the next presidential election, observes Bayram Balci, researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research at Sciences-Po. But conversely, “if he manages to return to Istanbul and Ankara, Erdogan will see this as encouragement to modify the Constitution to run again in 2028” and run for a fourth term, he notes.