2024-04-01 15:05:08
This content was published on April 1, 2024 – 5:05 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) Turkey, dominated for more than two decades by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party, woke up on Monday at a “turning point” as the head of state himself admitted. This after a historic victory for the opposition in the municipal elections.
The results, almost final, give the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social-democrat), the main opposition group, the clear winner of the vote even in the provinces of Anatolia held until then by the Justice and Justice Party. development (AKP, Islamo-conservative) of M Erdogan.
Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Antalya… the CHP, which had been stunned by the defeat of its candidate in the May 2023 presidential election, was a hit in the country’s largest cities including Bursa, seen as a conservative stronghold, as well as in several other provinces of Anatolia considered to have gained power.
Worst debacle for Erdogan
For observers, this is President Erdogan’s worst electoral debacle since his party came to power in 2002. During the night from Sunday to Monday, while the counting of ballot boxes continued, the president recognized a “turning point”, promising to “respect the decision of the nation”.
The very pro-government dailies Hürriyet and Yeni Safah headline Monday on the “message” that the Turks, faced with a severe economic crisis, wanted to send to the government.
The Hürriyet editorialist, Abdulkadir Selvi, known to be close to power, recognizes that “a new wind is blowing” over Turkey “which can only be explained by the economy”. Mr. Erdogan, re-elected last year, faces, according to him, “a new political equation”.
“Revolution at the polls”
“Revolution at the polls”, headlines Sözcü, a secular nationalist daily hostile to the head of state, while the major opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet salutes, in white letters and on a red background – the colors of the Turkish flag – a “historic victory”.
Anticipated in Ankara and Istanbul, the political and economic capitals that the government had lost in 2019, the opposition’s victory took observers by surprise with its scale, considered unprecedented since 1977 and which is reshaping the electoral geography of the country.
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