Opposition hands Erdogan a big election setback

ISTANBUL (AP):

Turkey’s opposition looked poised to win control of the country’s two biggest cities yesterday as it dealt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative party one of its most serious electoral setbacks in years. The opposition won Ankara, a ruling party stronghold for decades, and was leading a tight race for mayor in Istanbul, according to unofficial figures yesterday.

The leader, who has dominated Turkish politics for 16 years, declared victory despite the opposition gains.

Sunday’s local elections were widely seen as a gauge of support for Erdogan as the nation of 81 million faces a daunting economic recession. They were also a first test for Erdogan – who has been accused of increasingly authoritarian tendencies – since he got widely expanded presidential powers last year.

If confirmed, the swings in Ankara and Istanbul could be excruciating for the politician who campaigned hard to retain hold of them. The opposition also retained its hold over Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city.

Although Erdogan was not running for office Sunday, he became the face of the campaign, rallying tirelessly for months across Turkey, using hostile rhetoric against opposition parties, portraying the vote as a matter of national survival.

The decline in urban support for his conservative, religion-based party came despite the fact that Erdogan wields tight control over the media, which hardly covered the opposition candidates’ campaigns.

Behlul Ozkan, an associate professor at Marmara University, said Erdogan’s loss of ground in Ankara and Istanbul indicated that his socially conservative and construction-driven policies no longer resonated in Turkey’s cities.

“Political Islam’s quarter-century-old hegemony in Turkey’s two largest cities is over,” he said. “The basic problem is that Erdogan is not able to get votes from middle-income earners, who believe that the economy, education and urban administration are not run well.”

More than 57 million voters were eligible to choose leaders for 30 major cities, 51 provincial capitals and 922 districts in Turkey, as well as thousands of local positions. The election was marred by sporadic violence, with five dead and scores injured across Turkey.

Erdogan’s party and its nationalist allies garnered some 52 per cent of the vote overall, but the opposition made momentous inroads.