Turkey’s elections show the limits of Erdogan’s
nationalism
(Lefteris
Pitarakis/AP)
But this time it didn’t work. In
what’s being viewed as a rebuke to Erdogan, candidates representing his
Justice and Development Party, or AKP, were defeated in the major cities
throughout Turkey including the capital, Ankara, as well as Izmir,
Adana and Antalya. In Istanbul, the country’s biggest city, a politician
from the opposition Republican People’s Party looks to have secured a
majority of votes, though the AKP is challenging the result, and there are
fears of government foul play afoot. Even as AKP officials point out that
they and their coalition partners won the most votes across the country,
the next days will test Erdogan’s ability to stomach defeat.
The loss of Istanbul “would be an
especially harsh blow to the president,” wrote The Washington Post’s
Kareem Fahim. “Erdogan rose to national prominence as the city’s mayor
from 1994 to 1998. The city has since served as a source of wealth and
prestige for his party and a showcase — with its sprinting construction,
megaprojects and multiplying mosques — for his broader ideological vision.”
But amid a grim economic downturn,
which has seen the country’s currency, the lira, lose a third of its value
against the dollar, Erdogan could no longer hang his hat on the prosperity
ushered in during an earlier period of his rule. And his divisive populism
failed to secure enough nationalist support among urban voters.
“Rather than Erdogan’s imaginary
enemies,” noted Omer Taspinar of the
Brookings Institution, “Turkish voters in almost all major cities
preferred to focus on something much more concrete and visible: inflation,
unemployment, recession and a major drop in standards of living.”
Supporters
cheer for Ekrem Imamoglu, the main Turkish opposition's candidate for
Istanbul, after he visited the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
secular republic's founder, in Ankara on Tuesday. (Burhan Ozbilici/AP)
In many countries, municipal elections
are low on the totem pole of political relevance.
But in Turkey’s system, they select the heads of the country’s 81 provinces
and the cities and towns within them. This round of elections was also a
crucial litmus test for the years ahead. For the past half-decade, Erdogan
has taken Turkish voters on a ceaseless electoral roller coaster, which included multiple
parliamentary elections, a referendum on his ambitions
to remake the country’s political system and then a presidential election.
But Erdogan, who either as prime minister or president has been in power
for close to two decades, does not face an election until 2023. That’s just
as well, given the chastening verdict from Sunday.
“The loss of Turkey’s major cities
has also shattered Erdogan’s image as an invincible politician,” wrote Gonul Tol, a Turkey
scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She added that the
election delivered “a huge blow to the clientelistic network Erdogan has
built over the last 25 years,” which had helped him secure “the loyalty of
the business elite and put their resources to work to consolidate his
power.”
At the same time, the election was
the latest sign of a more-galvanized opposition overcoming years of
division and dysfunction. “Erdogan was blessed with an opposition of
disparate groups that hated each other,” Soner Cagaptay of the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy told Fahim. But now they had demonstrated
what could happen when “they came together in a meaningful union for the
first time.”
The deflating outcome for Erdogan
adds to his mounting woes. Abroad, he is engaged in a new squabble with the
United States over Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system.
At home, he faces mounting calls to enact deep economic reforms.
“It’s a terrible result for
Erdogan,” Berk Esen, an assistant professor of international relations at
Ankara’s Bilkent University, told the Financial Times.
“There’s an economic crisis, there’s an international crisis due to an
ongoing standoff with the U.S. At the same time, there is an electoral
defeat that shows his international partners and domestic opponents that
he’s quite vulnerable.”
But even with the deck stacked
against them, the opposition made tactical alliances and managed to score
significant wins. “There is a lesson in all of this for democrats around
the world struggling under populists or semi-authoritarian regimes,” wrote Post columnist Asli
Aydintasbas. “If you are organized, find the right candidate with the
right message — there’s your chance.”
Moreover, as much of Europe reckons
with the ascent of upstart populist or nationalist parties in their
countries, Erdogan offers a cautionary tale for what happens if they ever
assume and keep power — that is, as long as voters still get to decide.
“When populist rhetoric comes from
a fresh face and aims at a calcified elite, it sounds plausible,” wrote Selim Koru, an
Ankara-based analyst. “When it has supplanted that elite, and it has
reached its demographic limits, it begins to look ridiculous.”
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