Turkey’s resurgent opposition thumps Erdogan in pivotal local elections
- Turkey’s main opposition party retained its control over key cities and made huge gains elsewhere in local elections
- It was a major upset to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had set his sights on retaking control of those urban areas
Turks dealt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party their biggest electoral blow in a nationwide local vote that reasserted the opposition as a political force and reinforced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the president’s chief rival.
With most of the votes counted late on Sunday, Imamoglu led by 10 percentage points in the mayoral race in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, while his Republican People’s Party (CHP) retained Ankara and gained 15 other mayoral seats in cities nationwide.
It marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP) in their more than two decades in power, and could signal a change in the country’s divided political landscape. Erdogan called it a “turning point” in a post-midnight address.
He and the AKP fared worse than opinion polls predicted due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts said.
“Those who do not understand the nation’s message will eventually lose,” Imamoglu, 53, told thousands of jubilant supporters, some of them chanting for Erdogan to resign.