Erdogan foes may exploit his weak spot: Istanbul Turkey's president already seems worried about the 2019 elections, recognizing the possibility that as Istanbul goes, so goes the country. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay.

By Pinar Tremblay

Aug 31, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already launched his campaign for the November 2019 elections. Although not mentioned much in the news, there are two elections scheduled that year; the first will be the municipal races in March. Using any pretext, Erdogan has started assembling his party’s local leaderships in rallies, all with live TV coverage. As the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan is campaigning for both elections, but only talking about the presidential election so far. Why? The best explanation is found in Erdogan’s own words. On Aug. 20, he was in Istanbul speaking to a large crowd of AKP members. Cheers frequently interrupted his hourlong speech, even though Erdogan was harshly criticizing the audience for their lethargy and arrogance and bluntly talking about replacing them. The crowd was determined to spur on their leader regardless of his anger and resentment. Erdogan passionately emphasized the significance of Istanbul in the elections. He said those who fail to see the city's importance can serve neither it nor the AKP. Several times he stressed that if the AKP loses ground in Istanbul, the party will lose the whole country. Erdogan’s fear was out in the open during this speech — and he has a point.

For politicians, Istanbul is a city like no other in Turkey. As one seasoned AKP bureaucrat asked Al-Monitor, “Is there a Turkey beyond Istanbul?” Erdogan’s history in Istanbul is also significant. Erdogan lost three elections from 1986 until 1994, until he became the mayor of Istanbul by a slim margin, winning 25% of the votes. Since 1994, though the names of the political parties have changed, Erdogan’s party has been in charge of the government of the city, which is divided into 39 districts. In all general elections, Erdogan’s political party has won a majority of the votes in Istanbul. For the first time, during the April 16 referendum, Erdogan lost a majority in the big cities, and Istanbul was one of them. The loss of Istanbul is an alarming signal that the AKP could lose Turkey for two significant reasons. First, to better understand, let’s put in perspective why Istanbul matters more than any city. There are about 58 million registered voters in Turkey; 10.5 million of them are in Istanbul. That is, Istanbul holds 18% of the total vote share. Hence, the mayor of Istanbul is the most powerful man in Turkish politics after the president.

Second, Istanbul is the hub of domestic migration. That means the majority of Istanbul's contemporary residents have links to cities all over Turkey. This is particularly important for religious orders and big and midsize businesses. All religious orders, even those that have emanated from other parts of Turkey, have their centers based in Istanbul. Two prominent districts, Eyup and Uskudar, which have traditionally voted for the AKP, overwhelmingly voted against the April referendum to expand the powers of the presidency.

Mahmut Kar, media bureau chief of Hizbut Tahrir Turkey, confirmed Erdogan is concerned because the vote share in Istanbul for the referendum was lower than the average in Turkey. Istanbul is the trendsetter for the rest of the country, which could be bad news for Erdogan.

For one thing, Kar explained, Muslims and members of several other religious orders have been languishing in prisons for years, put there by the Fethullah Gulen movement when it was still in the government's good graces. But even after the 2016 attempted coup, which is blamed on Gulen, those who were persecuted by the movement haven't been released. If these religious orders turn away from the AKP, it won't be limited to Istanbul, as they coordinate voting behavior all around Turkey.