How Atatürk in smartphone outplayed Erdoğan on TV‍

Victory of the Turkish opposition. Why Erdoğan's biggest defeat in his political career did not become a sensation for those who have been following the trends of the last ten years

From the respectable British "The Economist" to short-lived Telegram feeds, everyone claims that it’s Erdoğan's failed economic policies to blame for his sensational loss in the Turkish local elections: high inflation (around 100% for the third year in a row), rising unemployment (over 22%) and the dire consequences of the February 2023 earthquake (over 50,000 dead).

But this loss was not a sensation for those who have been following the trends of the last ten years.

The Gezi Park protests in the summer of 2013 were a turning point for Turkish society. Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party were no longer perceived as a reformist force, and the open-minded politician himself became increasingly conservative and rejected his own past decisions. For example, Erdoğan personally signed the Istanbul Convention on Protection from Domestic Violence and Gender Equality in 2011 and then withdrew from the international treaty himself. Under his reign, the first gay pride parade was legally held in Istanbul in 2003, but they were banned in 2015. Since his first election, he started the process of "rapprochement with the Kurds" and then ended it in 2014.

Turkey's economy has been showing signs of recession since 2014. Only unorthodox monetary policy, based on artificially low-interest rates on loans, provided economic growth, which was paid for by the foreign trade deficit and weakening of the lira.

In 2021, there was an explosion. The lira did not just stop weakening on a planned basis, it collapsed, becoming one of the world's weakest currencies on par with the Argentine peso.

Nevertheless, neither double- to triple-digit inflation nor the catastrophic effects of the earthquake in the east of the country prevented Erdoğan from winning the presidential election for the third time and gaining a majority in parliament.

Now there's gonna be a lot of numbers.

But it’s impossible to explain the situation without them.

Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party received 16 million 400 thousand votes in the local elections of 2024. A year ago, the AKP received 19 million 400 thousand votes in the parliamentary elections and 20 million 500 thousand votes in the 2019 local elections. The loss is more than 4 million votes in 5 years, of which 3 million were lost in the last year.

The Republican People's Party, founded by Atatürk, received about 14 million votes in the 2019 local elections, last year its parliamentary list gained 13 million 800 thousand, and a few days ago the Republican People's Party broke the mark of 17 million 400 thousand. And it would seem that 4 million votes lost by the government and 3.5 million gained by the opposition answer the question: 3.5-4 million voters, dissatisfied with the “refrigerator”, went and voted for the Republican Party instead of the AKP.

But it doesn't work that way. Because votes can't flow between the supporters of these two forces - the ideological platforms and the history of the formation of the core of each force are too different. More precisely, such transitions are possible only among intellectuals, artists, or big business, who together make up a hundred thousand voters and can create media noise and "public opinion," but do not influence the outcome of the vote.

The 10% that ran away from the perennial champion and the 10% that made it to today's election winner are a different 10% and out of the remaining 20 million voters. Of these, between 5 and 10 million don't make it to the polling stations, about 7 million are nationalists, 5 million voters vote for the Kurdish party, and 3 million are ultra-religious for whom Erdoğan is too liberal. The rest experiment between communists, various exotic liberals, and virtual parties, of which there are at least two dozen in every Turkish election, and the total number of such voters is one million.

Topping the list in 2024 is the voter who ignored everyone - perhaps you've already read about the record-low turnout? Well, in Turkey this "low turnout" is 78%. For comparison - last year everyone marveled at the record-high (since 1989) turnout in Poland - 72%. Of course, the turnout has dropped compared to last year's first round of presidential elections in Turkey. Turkey is the only democracy with a turnout of more than 80% in competitive elections. It is higher only in North Korea and Kadyrov's Chechnya.

A year ago, the turnout was almost 88%. In the local elections of 2019 - 84,7%.

Indeed, the current municipal elections can be called apathetic. The number of voters has increased by 4,5 million in 5 years, while the number of those who voted remained at 48 million.

Analyzing turnout by region and the votes received by smaller parties in local elections shows how Atatürkists and Islamists have swapped places in the political standings.

Nearly 1,5 million of Erdoğan's votes went to the joker of this election, the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah partisi). Once upon a time, young Erdoğan, who grew up under the wing of Islamist professor Necmettin Erbakan, stole all the assets from his teacher, creating the AKP in 2001, which won the election 10 months later and never lost again for 21 years. Erbakan did not recover from the blow. The first Islamic prime minister of republican Turkey, from whose Welfare Party Erdoğan became mayor of Istanbul in 1994, after Erdoğan's act never broke the 10% threshold for parliament. Erbakan's best result until his death in 2011 was 5% in the 2004 local elections.

Now the late professor's son Fatih Erbakan is doing the same to Erdoğan. First, in 2018, he split off some assets from the Happiness Party (his father's last political project) and created the New Welfare Party. After hard bargaining with Erdoğan last year, he entered a political bloc with Erdoğan's party in the parliamentary elections in exchange for support in the presidential elections. Unexpectedly, he received 3% of the vote and realized that 5 parliamentary seats were too low a price to pay for support. Because of the peculiarities of the Turkish electoral system, small parties merge with larger allies. But the D'Hondt method distributes votes in such a way that the more popular party in the bloc gets disproportionately more seats than its smaller partner. With 600 deputies in the Mejlis, 3% is 18 seats. But a 3% independent march is 0 seats. This is the game: "oil for food", i.e. overcoming the barrier in exchange for a donation.

Having decided to play on his own this time, Fatih Erbakan did not miss out. 6% country-wide, becoming a bronze medalist in the race. Winning in two provinces and dozens of districts, giving a signal to investors, voters, and the rest of the non-passable Islamist parties: invest in the New Welfare. Now, for the first time, the passage barrier lowered from 10% to 7%, can be overcome without Erdoğan. These votes can crush Erdoğan's result now, but they will not go to his opponents in the presidential elections in 4 years in case of a second round. Right now, for the New Welfare supporters, Erdoğan is too westernized, Turkey is too secular, Gaza is not secure enough, and vaccines are too reptiloid. Given a choice of "Republican or Islamist," they will go to whomever the current president points to if he keeps his promise that this is his last election.

Erdoğan's junior partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, lost another million votes. This does not directly affect the result of Erdoğan's party. But it will take votes away from the incumbent president in the presidential election.

Another two and a half million voters of the AKP itself did not come to the polls, and their behavior in 4 years is impossible to predict.

But the 3,5 million votes of the Republican People's Party were formed by an unspoken coalition between two electorates: moderate nationalists from the Good Party and the Kurds. Bringing these parties together under a single political umbrella is impossible. Such a hypothetical coalition had its first chance to form a government without Erdoğan in 2015. Republicans, Turkish nationalists (then not yet split into the Nationalist Movement and the Good Party) and Kurds together gained 59%, while the winner of the election Erdoğan gained 40%. The Republicans offered different models for uniting against Erdoğan, but for the nationalists, the Kurdish party is a red double solid. Early elections had to be held. Meanwhile, there were major bloody terrorist attacks, and on the wave of demand for stability, Erdoğan's party received 49%, which gave it almost 60% of seats in the Mejlis and the opportunity to independently form a government.

In last year's elections, the moderate nationalists formed a bloc with the RPP with informal Kurdish support. The coalition collapsed after losing.

This time, the Atatürkists did not persuade anyone to unite. All of their former partners entered the race on their own, and the RPP was unexpectedly able to convince 1,5 million of the Good Party voters and 2 million of the Kurdish supporters to vote for their candidates. But the most important thing about this result is that for the most part, both the nationalists and Kurds who cast votes for Atatürk's party are new voters among the 4.5 million people who come of age after 2019. French sociological company IPSOS conducted an in-depth study at the exit polls in 2018 and compared the results with her previous results. It turned out that every year about one million new voters are added in Turkey. The most popular ideology among young people is moderately secular (without atheistic extremes) nationalism (Turkish or Kurdish) but with an oppositional view of the current government. Moderate nationalists from the Good Party took this as a guide to action. And for five years the formula worked. The Good Party was coming in at 15% and third place in the 2022 polls. But this time its pirouette was not appreciated by the young voter. The main ingredient was "opposition to the government," and by becoming opposition to the opposition, it became perceived as Erdoğan's spoiler.

As a result, Atatürk's party became the force where moderate Turkish and Kurdish nationalism, secularism, and opposition could unite in one bottle.

The “refrigerator” in Turkey has not beaten the “television”. The two appliances operate independently of each other. Most importantly, the voters of both major political forces have remained loyal to their parties. It's just that the voter who has seen nothing but Erdoğan ruling for about as long as broadband internet has ruled the world has grown up. Turkey is too open to the world, and it's hard to brainwash young Mehmet from Denizli, unlike young Vanya in Smolensk. In Turkey, the Internet generation has defeated the TV generation. With 30 million foreign tourists in Turkey each year and 7 million Turks in Europe, a young Turk can compare pictures on TV, online, and offline. Given the country's demographic growth, this voter adds about 2% of the vote each year, of which 0,8% goes to the government and - 1,2% to the opposition. The difference of 0,4% per year in favor of Erdoğan's opponents will add 2% to his potential rival by 2028. In 4 years, Turkey's fate may indeed be decided by chance - we remember that Erdoğan won the last presidential battle by 52% to 48%.

PS: Separately, it is worth mentioning the result of the Turkish Putinists. Dogu Perincek's party called Vatan (Motherland) ideologically oscillates between Chinese communism and the extreme nationalism of Iran. 99 years ago, such an ideology was called National Socialism. The party garnered 42,000 votes, or 0,09%, winning seats in three village councils out of 50,000.