Why Turkey’s elections matter
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is likely to win municipal elections on March 30, so the real question is what comes next?
More than 52 million Turks are expected to go to the ballot box on March 30. They will elect mayors and other local administrators, who will be in office for the next five years. In other words, this is not a general election that will change the structure of parliament and the government. That election is scheduled for July 2015. Yet, many see these local elections as extremely significant, because it has taken the form of an implicit referendum on the popularity of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Four important political forces will compete with each other from the outset:
- Erdogan’s conservative, pro-Islamic and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
- The secularist, center-left main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP)
- The flagship of Turkish nationalism, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP)
- The flagships of Kurdish nationalism and sister parties, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the People’s Democracy Party (HDP)
Few doubt that the AKP will, again, be the winner of the elections in respect to the national average. The question is how decisive its success will be. There have been numerous polls predicting the results. Accordingly, the AKP’s national average is 35-45%. The CHP's is somewhere around 25-30%. The MHP follows with 15-20%, and Kurdish parties are expected to get some 7-8% of the national average.
In the previous local elections, held in 2009, Erdogan’s AKP had won 39% of the national average. Hence, Erdogan has declared that anything above this threshold will be a victory. Others, however, point to the 50% support the AKP captured in the 2011 general elections, arguing that the ruling party’s score should be judged according to that figure.
