The victory was indisputable and the result historic. Less than a year after reappointing Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to lead the country, Turkey handed the presidential majority a severe defeat in the municipal elections on Sunday, March 31.
Dozens of cities changed hands in favor of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), the evening's big winner. Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Antalya, the country's five largest conurbations, voted overwhelmingly for the party founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk just over a century ago.
The incumbent mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, received over a million votes more than his opponent, obtaining 51% against 39%. AKP strongholds such as Üsküdar, Gaziosmanpasa and Bayrampasa went over to the opposition. Nearly 26 of the 39 districts in the country's economic capital were won by the CHP, 12 more than in 2019. This was the first time this had happened in half a century.
Everywhere else, the CHP increased its gains, going as far as to topple strongholds of power in the Black Sea region and central Anatolia. Even the town of Adiyaman, ruled for years by the AKP and hit hard by the 2023 earthquake, put the CHP candidate well ahead in the polls.
Above all, the CHP movement has become the country's leading formation, topping the AKP by almost two points, with 37.5% of the vote. The success is all the more impressive given that the CHP had hardly exceeded 25% for two decades. The results were so dramatic that the Turkish president conceded, shortly before midnight in Ankara, at his party's headquarters and in front of an unusually silent crowd, that these results represented "not an end, but a turning point" for his camp, adding that "unfortunately, we didn't get the results we wanted."
From Erdogan, who is not inclined to make any concessions of failure, such a statement is not insignificant. He had thrown all his weight behind the campaign, particularly in Istanbul, his birthplace, where he even took part in five rallies in two days, on the eve of the vote.
As soon as the first results were in, spontaneous rallies sprang up in many of the country's cities. In Sarigazi, on Istanbul's Asian shore, dozens of people chanted "Erdogan resign." The new mayor of Üsküdar, Sinem Dedetas, told her followers that voters had "punished the AKP."
Everywhere, horns sounded in victory in the neighborhoods. Young people on scooters waved flags bearing the red CHP logo. In the capital, Ankara, a dense crowd of several thousand gathered in the municipal garden to listen to the overwhelmingly re-elected mayor, Mansur Yavas. "Those who have been long ignored have sent a clear message to those who run this country," he told a jubilant audience.
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