AKP pays the price for Erdogan’s dictatorship

Turkey’s election ended with victory for the opposition in a number of major cities, most notably Ankara and Antalya. Although Antalya is the seat of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the city in the 2014 election before losing in the 2019 election.

Remarkably, Ankara is an important center for the AKP and represents a great symbol of the ruling party, which means that losing it represents a tremendous blow to the AKP. Given the election figures, the AKP was able to maintain its voting power in Ankara but lost nonetheless.

This loss was due to several reasons, perhaps the most important of which is the AKP’s ambivalence, since the party allied itself with the nationalist movement and at the same time tried to get Kurdish votes in the cities of southeastern Turkey.

Since the Kurds and nationalists are bitter enemies, the nationalists from Ankara voted for the CHP candidate, Mansur Yavaş. This was not only detrimental to the AKP, but the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was also negatively affected by its alliance with the AKP, dropping from 11percent in the last election to 7 percent in the current election.

Although the party won 5.6 million votes in the 2018 parliamentary elections, it garnered only 3.5 million votes in the 2019 local elections, revealing a significant decline, which can be explained by the party's dependence on the AKP in all its political orientations, as well as the anger of the party's nationalist bloc at the KDP, which seeks to polarize the Kurds.

Despite the obvious damage to the parties, they insist on cooperating together until they reach the majority threshold in parliament that allows them to have full control over the state's legislative decisions.

The AKP has admitted that it lost a number of important states, but it stressed that the party is still at the top of Turkish political life. It was a routine statement but revealed the anger of the party, which now seeks to understand its mistakes and correct them. The AKP realizes that the localities are the only way to reach the top of the country’s power pyramid in the country, giving local officials the opportunity to contact citizens and provide services, which could improve their party's chances in future elections.

Although the AKP won 44 percent of the vote, almost 1 percent more than the 2014 elections, the loss of the largest Turkish municipalities affected the image of the party and confirmed the opposition's ability to represent a real challenge in the coming period.

The election also confirmed that the popularity of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself outweighs the popularity of his party. In the last presidential election, Erdogan won nearly 25 million votes, while his party won only 21 million votes, confirming that the party has been reduced to Erdogan.

In other words, the AKP will find itself in a great dilemma after Erdogan’s departure from power, because the party has worked on getting rid of any leaders that could pose a challenge to Erdogan in the leadership of the party, meaning that Erdogan will soon pay the price for his desire to have sole authority.