2019 Turkish Local Elections: Is It Illegal to Win Against the Ruling Party?
The ruling political party AKP, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, lost Istanbul and Ankara in the March 31st Local Elections. The AKP immediately filed an appeal. Soon after, the votes in Istanbul were recounted and the results were confirmed. Yet, the AKP appealed to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) and endorsed the cancellation of the elections. On May 6th, the YSK announced the cancellation of the certificate of elections, with June 23rd, 2019 as the scheduled date of the re-elections. This decision triggered public rage, escalated political tensions with the main opposition party CHP, and undermined the democratic values, concerning the international community.
Istanbul is home to 20% of the residents of Turkey and is the key economic hub of the city, accounting for 33% of the country’s GDP. Ankara is the political capital and has been governed by the ruling party for the past 25 years. Thus, even though the AKP won approximately 51% of the total votes nationwide, losing these two major municipalities and historical AKP strongholds would severely weaken their authority.
On April 1st, General Secretary of the AKP Fatih Şahin claimed “invalid votes and irregularities in most of the 12,158 polling stations in Ankara” and Ali İhsan Yavuz, Deputy Chairman of the AKP reported that the elections involved “organized fraud, unlawfulness and crimes” in 39 districts of Istanbul, signaling that the party would challenge the results. Three weeks after the election, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the candidate from the main opposition party, CHP, was declared Istanbul mayor after the votes were recounted and confirmed valid in the alleged districts.
The AKP then submitted a petition to extraordinary objection to the YSK, which is known to be dominant of Erdoğan loyalists, demanding invalidating the elections and holding a re-run in Istanbul. Expectedly, the YSK announced the cancellation of the certificate of elections due to a technicality, disclosing that the election boards in Istanbul involved non-civil servants, and ordered the elections to be re-run in March 23, 2019. Imamoğlu satirized the YSK’s statement. "With the same election rules, a president has been elected, a referendum has been held, so there is also uncertainty over the Constitution and the President's position," he said.
Imamoğlu addressed the public, saying, "We are thirsty for justice. The decision-makers in this country may be in a state unawareness, error or even treason, but we will never give up.". Onursal Adıgüzel, Deputy Chairman of the CHP, said that the recent events proved that it was "Illegal to win against the AK Party", and considered the YSK’s decision "Plain dictatorship". He further condemned the events, stating that, "This system that overrules the will of the people and disregards the law is neither democratic, nor legitimate.”
The international community, especially the European Union and its Member States, condemned the YSK’s decision. Heiko Mass, Foreign Minister of Germany, referred to the decision to re-run the elections as "incomprehensible". And Guy Verhofstadt, the Leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said that Turkey was "drifting towards dictatorship". The French Government also voiced its criticism and invited Turkish authorities to demonstrate their respect for democratic principles, pluralism, fairness and transparency. Federica Mogherini, Diplomatic Chief of the European Union, reported that, "Ensuring a free, fair and transparent election process is essential to any democracy and is at the heart of the European Union's relations with Turkey."
The decision to hold re-elections poses a potential political threat for the AKP and Erdogan. The party could lose again, with even a larger margin. The AKP publicly fought for the cancellation of the elections after being defeated, which already yielded to a petty and power-hungry image. If the results remain the same following the re-run, the Party’s credibility would be injured significantly.