The most important questions about the election blow for the Turkish president: is this the beginning of the end for Erdogan?

Turkey elected its mayors and municipal councilors on Sunday. The opposition party won in many places, not just in Turkey’s five largest cities. Overall, the CHP became the strongest force in the country with more than 37.13 percent of the vote, ahead of the AKP with 36.14 percent. For Erdogan’s party, this is the worst election result in more than twenty years. Particularly bitter for the president: the mayors in the economic metropolis Istanbul and the capital Ankara were confirmed in their position.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan (70) was re-elected president last May. But even then, many Turks no longer supported him. There was no absolute majority in the first voting round. Erdogan was only able to defeat opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu (75) in the second round of elections. The local elections show the current mood in the country. And that goes to the advantage of the opposition. Only 76 percent of the 61 million voters went to the polls. No more than the past twenty years ago. The 51 percent with which the current CHP mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu (52), was confirmed in power is also alarming for Erdogan. Istanbul is Erdogan’s political home. Here he started his steep political career as mayor in 1994. And here it says: “Whoever rules Istanbul will also become president of Turkey.”

Poor disaster management, economic crisis, elitist power apparatus. These are some of the factors that led to Erdogan’s election debacle. The turbo reconstruction that the president promised after the once-in-a-century earthquake in early February 2023 is stalling. More than 600,000 earthquake victims still live in container villages. At the same time, prices and unemployment are rising. According to the central bank, Turkey is heading for inflation of 75 percent. A weak lira makes the import of raw materials more expensive. The lavish lives of the political elite are also making people increasingly angry.

For Erdogan, the election Sunday was a devastating defeat, political scientist Soli Özel from Kadir Has University told the “Tagesspiegel”, “the result is a tectonic shift that is barely imaginable”. His colleague Murat Somer from Özyegin University sees the beginning of the end of the Erdogan era. Murat Yetkin, author of the influential blog YetkinReport, also predicts a turning point. “Citizens wake up in a different Türkiye.”

President Erdogan has admitted defeat. We want to learn from our mistakes now, the president said on election night. The realization could correct his autocratic course. Otherwise, there would be a promising opponent: Ekrem Imamoglu, the re-elected mayor of Istanbul. If the CHP actually wins in the next presidential election in 2028, he would be its candidate. Then Turkey would find its way back to democracy and turn more towards the EU and the West.