Since March 31, the defeat in Turkey of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic conservative Justice and Development Party, the A.K.P., and its ultranationalist electoral partner Nationalist Movement Party, the M.H.P., in municipal elections in Ankara, Istanbul and several others cities has led to premature commentary that Turkey is on the verge of change.

By wresting control of mayoral positions in Ankara and Istanbul, which were held by Mr. Erdogan’s party for 25 years, the opposition coalition has shown that Mr. Erdogan is not invincible.

But it is no victory for liberal values. The opposition coalition of the Republican People’s Party, the C.H.P., and its electoral partner, the Good Party — an offshoot of Mr. Erdogan’s ultranationalist partner — is simply another version of the right-wing nationalism of the ruling coalition of the A.K.P. and the M.H.P.

The C.H.P., which is officially a social democratic party, has endorsed the imprisonments of elected Kurdish politicians and nominated ultranationalists, among them Mansur Yavas, the mayor-elect in Ankara, the national capital. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the C.H.P. leader, has said that he “loves” the ultraright nationalists. He has also said that the left-right divide has become irrelevant and that it was a mistake by the left in the past to focus on income redistribution.