This is an excerpt from Turkey Briefing, Al-Monitor's weekly newsletter covering the big stories of the week in Turkey. To get Turkey Briefing in your inbox, sign up here.
Can the opposition hold on to Istanbul or will President Recep Tayyip Erdogan succeed in wresting back Turkey’s fabled megapolis and seat of power to govern the rest of the country? The question is looming ever larger as nationwide municipal elections scheduled for March 31 draw near. The answer lies largely with the Kurds, who swung the last municipal elections in the opposition’s favor in March 2019, when they backed the candidate of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ekrem Imamoglu.
The political landscape has changed dramatically, however, since the CHP-led opposition alliance’s humiliating defeat in the May 2023 presidential polls — and with it Kurdish calculations. Responding to pressure from its base, the largest pro-Kurdish party, the Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM), has been signaling that it may field its own contender for Istanbul even as it's been holding informal talks with the CHP about a possible alliance that would allow Imamoglu to retain his seat.
The prevailing consensus is that if Imamoglu wins, it could catapult him to the helm of the CHP and allow him to potentially run against Erdogan in the presidential elections due to be held in 2028. Had the CHP let him do so last year, Imamoglu would have had a solid chance of winning, according to most opinion polls.
