Victoria does not taste anything: Erdoğan loses control of the main cities of Turkey

The numbers cheat sometimes. Despite the fact that the ruling party won more than 44% of the votes, the record of the Turkish elections of Sunday, March 31 was not very favorable for the current president Reccep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to the provisional statement, the secular opposition of the CHP – allied with the nationalist party IYI and the HDP Kurds – had secretly won – in five of the six most important cities, including the critical triangle Istanbul-Ankara-Smyrna.

In the Bosphorus city, with over 8 million votes, the gap between the opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoğlu and the former Prime Minister of AKP Binalí Yildirim was less than 25 000 votes. A very small difference for which there were no officialist voices citing irregularities against the opposition. However, this Turkish novel will continue in the electoral commission with the final count.

Does the defeat in several big cities mean the beginning of the end for Erdoğan? The change of political sign in Istanbul and Ankara it's a yellow light on the political horizon of the Turkish rulerbut that does not necessarily indicate the decline of his political career. Skepticism is explained by three important reasons: the type of institutional system, the alliance between conservatives and nationalists and the political resilience of Erdoğan as a conservative populist leader.

In the midst of the polarization that has characterized its political system for several years, the Turkish population voted the municipal authorities. Turkey is a country with a unitary organization. The governors of each province are appointed by the President of the Republic. Although the presidential project is new and has been implemented definitively last year after the last presidential elections, the governors were previously appointed by the prime minister. Governors are responsible for implementing government and legislative decisions in their respective territories, as well as indirectly influencing local governments. Mayors and municipal bademblies are chosen by the population, although their margins of action are limited, despite the large budget of Istanbul and Ankara. For Erdoğan, the new opponents will be a boring burden, but institutionally, he has the necessary tools to hinder his efforts. A question of political survival.

This is not the first time that polls affect Erdoğan's plans. In 2009, the AKP had obtained – in the midst of the global financial crisis of 2008/2009 – a percentage lower than 40%, while in 2015 – at the height of the Kurdish-Syrian crisis – a second General vote had been requested after the impossibility of forming a government. In any case, Erdoğan not only survived, but he was able to impose his program of institutional reforms, notably by modifying the political system in favor of his function of President of the Republic. The difference is that there is now a combination of inflation and economic recession that has reduced support in urban centers.

The key to Erdoğan's continuity was in a dual game that he had masterfully managed: sustained leadership within the Justice and Development Party, avoiding internal divisions and forging alliances with sectors outside the AKP. While we expect an increase in tensions around both the ruling party's unity by centrist figures – and displaced people leaders like Gül and Davutoğlu – as well as of the current alliance of Islamic conservatives with the ultranationalists of the MHP, for the moment, there does not seem to be any obvious signs of fractures given the nature of this choice. However, as the economic crisis worsens, the executive may no longer be able to bring together the sectors of the current coalition.

The author earned his Ph.D. in International Relations and Political Science at the University of Koç, Turkey. He is currently Executive Secretary of the Center for International Studies (CEI-UCA) of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Argentina.