Great victory for CHP. A vital shot in the arm for the progressive forces in the country. Now it is time to show the founding party how to manage several of the world's major cities and make the next presidential elections a very competitive one.
AKP would wish this was an April 1st joke.
Are you retarded or just trolling?
Since 2002, AKP has been getting 42-50% of the vote in
every election (parliamentary, provincial, local etc)
Since 2002, CHP has been getting 25%-30% of the vote in
every election (parliamentary, provincial, local etc)
This election:
Exact same thing happened
AKP got almost 45% of the vote while CHP got 30% of the vote (+/- 1%)
How is this a great victory for CHP? Even in Ankara and Istanbul, AKP swept provincial elections. In other words, if today was a parliamentary or Presidential election:
AKP would have won both Ankara and Istanbul
AKP just lost
mayor elections for these two cities (
while winning the Ankara and Istanbul provinces as a whole) and you are acting as if its over for AKP.
Everyone knows AKP is untouchable until 2028. After that, Erdogan will retire from politics and
only then other parties might have a shot at governing Turkey.
Oh btw: In Ankara, CHP did not win....
Mansur Yavas won. Everyone knew he was going to win. He is a life-long nationalist with good reputation in Ankara. He was a member of MHP throughout his life and just joined CHP for election reasons this year. Essentially, Mansur Yavas is ideologically closer to AKP+MHP than he is to secularist CHP.
So in essence, AKP really only lost Instabul's mayor election--and that too by less than 0.3% in an election cycle that was the worst it ever faced (double-digit inflation, economy down, no terrorism threats to exploit, local elections where people's choices are more fluid, currency crisis, strong opposition candidates, all parties coordinating to maximize anti-AKP vote etc)......And yet, AKP clearly won the local elections with 45% of the vote share nationally----
winning ~540 districts out of 936 districts nationwide.
All major polls predicted AKP to get around 40% of the vote. AKP got almost 45% but yeah, great loss for Erdogan and AKP.
This is the provincial-level electoral map of today's local elections
As usual, AKP absolutely
dominates Turkish heartlands throughout Anatolia, Black Sea, and Bosphorus regions.
CHP performs well only in coastal, secular, wealthy provinces of Aegean Sea and Mediterranean.