{"id":12815,"date":"2024-04-17T23:24:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T03:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=12815"},"modified":"2024-04-26T23:27:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T03:27:46","slug":"erdogans-colossal-defeat-in-turkey-and-a-new-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/04\/erdogans-colossal-defeat-in-turkey-and-a-new-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdo\u011fan\u2019s colossal defeat in Turkey \u2014 and a new hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n March 31, the surprise results of Turkey\u2019s municipal elections completely transformed the political mood in the country. President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost 15 out of the 36 cities it governed. The main opposition party, Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP), gained 15 cities and won a plurality of the national vote with 37 percent. Last year, when most pollsters and analysts predicted his defeat in the general elections, Erdo\u011fan devastated the opposition with a surprise victory. What has changed since then?<\/p>\n

Inflation in Turkey had been in the double digits<\/a> for the past six years, reaching nearly triple digits for the past two. Poverty is widespread in most major cities. Nearly half of the workers in the private sector work for minimum wage<\/a>.\u00a0Rent<\/a> and food<\/a> prices are skyrocketing. The disorganization of the working class through austerity and union busting throughout the 2000s prevented a major response from organized labor. In the absence of a strong workers\u2019 movement, Erdo\u011fan managed poverty through AKP\u2019s control over the municipal government services that distributed food and resources<\/a>. After the AKP lost most major cities in 2019, he instead focused on raising pensions<\/a> and the minimum wage<\/a>, while maintaining the credit access of the already heavily indebted working and middle classes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year, the tightness of Turkey\u2019s government budget in the face of the ongoing stagflation and currency devaluation crisis prevented Erdo\u011fan from raising pensions before the municipal elections. Historically, a quarter of voters and a sizable chunk of Erdo\u011fan\u2019s support came from older religious voters in smaller cities and urban ghettos. Yet the initial results suggest that many older voters either stayed at home or voted for other parties.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for the lack of enthusiasm was Erdo\u011fan\u2019s candidate picks in major cities, including \u0130stanbul and Ankara. In \u0130stanbul, the former secretary of environment and urban planning Murat Kurum, a figure partially responsible for Turkey\u2019s earthquake disaster, failed miserably due to a near complete lack of social skills. In Ankara, Turgut Alt\u0131nok, a big landlord, spent a lot of his campaign trying to justify his outrageous net worth<\/a>. Despite different candidates, the situation was similar in 2019 when the AKP lost both cities. Erdo\u011fan\u2019s complete control over the party apparatus forces him to pick national figures close to himself who have very little context for the local conditions in urban ghettos where the AKP used to have a strong base.<\/p>\n