Turkey is set to hold local elections next Sunday as President Tayyip Erdogan, who had a strong showing in last year’s general elections, eyes winning back Istanbul.
The secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) took back control of the city in 2019 for the first time since Erdogan ruled it as mayor in the 1990s.
In the 2019 elections, the opposition also took back control of the capital Ankara, and the large Aegean port city of Izmir, breaking Erdogan’s image of invincibility.
Erdogan has entrusted his former environment minister, Murat Kurum, to run for mayor of Istanbul in the upcoming election.
CHP rival Ekrem Imamoglu scored the worst political defeat for Erdogan in his two-decade rule when he took town hall.
The Turkish president won a tough presidential election last year amid an economic crisis and a massive earthquake that took the lives of more than 53,000 people in Turkey.
Erdogan grew up in Istanbul and began his political career there as mayor in 1994.
Imamoglu’s election in 2019 was controversially annulled but he won a re-run vote by a massive margin.
He is considered the opposition’s best bet at regaining the presidency from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2028.
Last year’s poor general election saw a fractured opposition and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), the third largest in parliament, has put up its own candidates for the local elections.
The CHP’s Imamoglu received support from a range of political parties in 2019, including the right-wing IYI Party, Socialists, and Kurds.
Erdogan is leading the AKP campaign and his rallies are broadcast daily on television, while opposition candidates receive little airtime, causing them to turn to social media.
The Turkish president’s failure to control Turkey’s 67 percent inflation could hurt his candidate Kurum’s chances.
Opinion polls indicate next week’s election will be tight and in Ankara, CHP mayor Mansur Yavas appears to be ahead in the polls.
Fifty-two mayors from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), now DEM, elected in 2019 were replaced by state-appointed administrators.
