TURKEY’S OPPOSITION scored a spectacular upset in local elections on March 31st, winning control of the country’s biggest cities, surging past the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party nationwide, and handing Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s president, a stinging rebuke. As of 11pm local time, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was on pace to receive 37.2% of the overall vote, compared to 36.2% for AK.

But that overall figure masked much bigger wins in the big cities. In Istanbul, the most important prize in the elections, in which Turks voted for mayors and city councils, Ekrem Imamoglu, the city’s CHP mayor, coasted to another term. With over 80% of ballots opened, the incumbent had received 50.5% of the vote, compared to 40.7% for his AK rival, Murat Kurum, a former urban affairs minister.

That alone was a blow for Mr Erdogan and AK, who had been determined to win back control of the country’s biggest city, which they had run for a quarter century until Mr Imamoglu’s surprise victory in 2019.

But even more shocking were the results elsewhere. “Tsunami,” one CHP official wrote on X, as results began to trickle in from across the country. That was not too far from the truth. Only ten months after a poor showing in Turkey’s general elections, in which it squandered a golden opportunity to unseat Mr Erdogan, the country’s main opposition party managed to redraw its political map. The result is the veteran CHP’s best showing in any election, local or general, since the late 1970s.

In Ankara, the country’s capital and its second biggest city, the CHP’s incumbent mayor, Mansur Yavas, was on pace to trounce AK’s candidate by 25 percentage points. In Izmir, Turkey’s third city, the CHP’s mayoral hopeful was ahead by 11 points. For the first time in decades, the opposition also made major inroads in small towns and villages, traditionally the source of the AK’s core support. “The electoral map of Turkey has been transformed,” said Evren Balta, a professor at Ozyegin University.

The election seems sure to reshape national politics. A victory for AK would have made it easier for Mr Erdogan to push ahead with introducing a new constitution, probably designed to give him at least another term. The scale of AK’s losses in Istanbul and elsewhere means his appetite for such changes, which would have to be put to a referendum, may now be diminished or gone altogether. “This is off the books now,” says Berk Esen, an academic at Sabanci University.

The marked improvement on the CHP’s disappointing result (25.3%) in last year’s parliamentary elections largely has to do with the economy. Despite the assurances that Mr Erdogan made last summer, when he and AK prevailed in the presidential and parliamentary elections, the economy remains in the doldrums. Even after interest rate increases totaling more than 40 percentage points, annual inflation has continued to inch upward, closing in on 70%. Mr Erdogan can no longer offer voters the kind of handouts to which they had become accustomed in recent years, and which have shielded them from skyrocketing consumer prices. “Because of the turn to economic orthodoxy, people are feeling the economic pain even more than before,” says Ms Balta.

Nowhere were the stakes as high as in Istanbul, whose mayorship is sometimes described as Turkey’s second most powerful post, after the presidency. Home to 16m people, including migrants from all over the country, Istanbul accounts for nearly 20% of Turkey’s population and over 30% of its economic output. Control over its $16bn budget and its patronage networks helps political parties finance themselves and their cronies. The city also makes and breaks careers. It was his win in the 1994 mayoral elections that first helped propel Mr Erdogan onto the national stage, then to the leadership of AK, and eventually to Turkey’s top office.

Mr Imamoglu’s odds of following the same trajectory have now vastly improved. Already the opposition’s most recognisable politician, the 52-year-old now has a clear path to the CHP’s leadership and a run in the 2028 presidential elections. Meanwhile Mr Erdogan is in a pickle. “He may even have to contemplate an early election or a transition back to a parliamentary system,” says Mr Esen. Turkey’s leader knows that if he or his successor were to lose to Mr Imamoglu, AK would be left powerless, he says. “For him that’s a nightmare scenario.” ■