IN one important respect, Turkey’s upcoming municipal elections do not matter. Even if the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party and its far right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ally lose badly, as some commentators expect in a free and fair vote, it is unlikely to wobble President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who still has four years of his mandate to run.
Since he drove through radical constitutional changes that created a powerful executive presidency, which he then won, Erdogan has been busy centralizing government powers. He will not regard defeat in local polls as in the least bit critical to his increasingly autocratic presidential rule. In parliament, the AK party does not have an outright majority and is having to work in coalition with the MHP. But since legislators have been largely marginalized, they present his administration with few real challenges.
Erdogan has been without doubt the Turkish Republic’s most popular and successful politician, first as prime minister and now as president. But his popularity has been waning and his success, certainly in terms of the economy, has become tarnished. There have been steep price rises, companies burdened with unmanageable amounts of foreign debt are tottering and unemployment has been rising steadily from a low of 9.6 percent in April last year to 13.5 percent at the end of the year. Moreover, these official statistics appear open to question.
The huge wave of arrests and the firing of ten of thousands of government employees in the wake of the failed July 2016 coup unsettled the country. Erdogan may have been saved by popular protests against the rebel troops and the loyalty of most of his military commanders but Turkish society remains shaken. And even among his supporters there is concern over the president’s considerable backing for the Muslim Brotherhood, the political voice of Islamist terrorists. They question how the Republic can be battling Kurdish PKK terrorists while at the same time giving direct support and weaponry to terrorist militias in Libya and Syria.
Whatever the outcome of this Sunday’s vote, the municipal election will be significant in one particular way. Opposition parties have entered into an electoral pact. Publicly, only the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the nationalist Good (IYI) party have agreed not to field rival candidates in municipalities where one is stronger than the other. But whether by agreement or just plain tactics, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) is also not contesting seats where it has no chance of winning. Given that a dozen HDP legislators, including party leader Selahattin Demirtas have been jailed and some 90 HDP mayors ousted and replaced by government-appointed officials, the venerable CHP, established in 1923 by the Republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and IYI have avoided any public connection with the HDP.
Tactical voting by people fed up with Erdogan could have an important effect on the final outcome, even though, win or lose, the president is unlikely to be diverted from his imperial political leadership. But if tactical voting works for opposition parties on Sunday, it will suggest a very significant outcome for the next scheduled general and presidential elections in 2023. But for those Turks who deplore the confrontational course on which Erdogan has set their country, abandoning long-standing allies including the US and Europe and cozying up to Russia, Iran and Qatar, the next four years are going to seem very long indeed.
