The election campaign is over. The banners remained only in the very central Beyoğlu, the tourist heart and pulsating center located in the European part of Istanbul. The photos that still stand out are those of the mayoral candidate who supports Erdogan, Murat Kurum, and of the current opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu. On the one hand the slogan Yeniden Istanbul ‘Istanbul again’, on the other Tam yol ileri ‘Full speed ahead’. In the middle, a middle class in extreme difficulty, grappling – for years now – with a serious economic crisis. Inflation now exceeds 67%, with the Turkish lira regularly weakening. The average salary is just over 400 euros per month, too little in an ultra-modern and ever-growing metropolis.
With the administrative elections on Sunday 31 March, the AKP party of the Turkish head of state wants to regain the economic capital of the country, where Erdogan was born and was first citizen from 1994 to 1997. In the last elections in 2019, the opposition politician, Imamoglu, won . Today, according to the polls, he is ahead of the challenger supported by the Turkish president. Winning on the Bosphorus would make Erdogan forget the heavy defeat suffered five years ago which made the current mayor of Istanbul a leading figure for the entire opposition and very popular, both nationally and internationally. The Turkish president has declared that these will be his last elections, but few really believe it. «He says it often, but in the end he will remain, as always»: this is the widespread opinion among citizens.
Imamoglu campaigned on social equality, against the government’s disastrous economic management, promising aid to the citizens of Istanbul, starting with the youngest and university students. Promising concrete support against a cost of living that has now become unsustainable. Few can afford to rent an apartment in the city center, the average rent for which is 400 euros per month. While the average pensions are around three hundred euros per month. A megalopolis, with fifteen million inhabitants, within the reach of an ever smaller number of citizens. Continuously growing and moving, where the gap between rich and poor is increasingly wider and dramatically visible.
The AKP candidate, Murat Kurum, is the Turkish president’s trusted man, a person with weak leadership but a close ally of the Turkish president. Much criticized by the opposition, especially for the post-earthquake management. The latter, former Minister of the Environment and Urbanisation, kept both the thorny economic issue and the issue of immigration far from his electoral campaign. There are 540 thousand Syrian refugees living in Istanbul and they are frowned upon by a significant part of the population. Also avoiding dealing with a topic very dear to the Turkish president but frowned upon by the majority of Istanbulites: the infamous Istanbul channel. A mega project currently on hold, but we don’t know for how much longer.
In the local elections five years ago, Erdogan also lost Ankara, the second largest city in the country. For the capital, polls predict a confirmation of Mansur Yavas, the opposition politician who won in 2019. According to the findings, the AKP will have no problems maintaining control of central Anatolia, the stronghold of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative party. While in the big cities we will have to see how much the ultra-national and Kurdish parties can move the needle – to one side or the other. There are just a few hours left until the final verdict to see what the political fate of Turkey’s two largest metropolises will be. The result in Istanbul does not seem at all obvious.