The İmamoğlu glue, Erdoğan's dilemma

Let me try to clarify the murky waters of politics.

The debates taking place today are the latest reflections of a long and arduous arm-wrestling match…

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May 2021…

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli announced that they were preparing a new constitution text that would “institutionalize the presidential system.”

Remember, 100 articles were listed. The summary of the new draft constitution was that it would screw Erdoğan into the 50+1 system.

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Yet, under normal circumstances, Erdoğan cannot reach a 50+1 vote share, it does not emerge from any poll, and he was looking for remedies before the election.

Devlet Bahçeli had convinced Erdoğan of this system and had become a major power broker in the government as the Palace's small but essential partner.

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Let's go a little further back…

In the 2015 elections, the AKP had fallen from power, and Devlet Bahçeli had extended Erdoğan's political life by announcing that he would not take part in the opposition alliance. So much so that Erdoğan and his team had been pulled back from the brink thanks to Bahçeli.

Bahçeli had received the reward for this miraculous support with the 50+1 alliance system.

If we forget these developments that have taken place since 2015, we will have difficulty understanding the steps taken today.

Erdoğan paid his debt of gratitude to Bahçeli with the last election. With the 50+1 alliance system, he played his biggest political gamble against the Table of Six. The opposition's chain of errors, primarily in communication and candidate selection, gifted power to the Erdoğan-Bahçeli duo. (This is a separate topic for an article)

Erdoğan won elections he could never have won by succeeding in also designing the opposition.

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BAHÇELİ'S SHACKLES…

Local elections are ahead of us, and the same dilemma is once again on the Palace's table.

Erdoğan is again trying to design the opposition… If he cannot divide the opposition, he will not be able to hold power at the local level.

I place the Good Party's (İyi Parti) project of fielding candidates in every province into this picture.

However, this time Erdoğan will face strong mayors and mayoral candidates.

There is a dynamic CHP whose leadership has changed and whose management staff has been renewed by becoming younger.

Özgür Özel, who became the chairman with the wind of change, can also reflect the renewal in the party management to the local level.

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Erdoğan's biggest goal is no secret… By winning Istanbul, he will both ‘get rid of’ Ekrem İmamoğlu, whom he sees as his biggest rival, and effortlessly build the ‘system whose constitution is himself,’ which he has brought to the agenda with the chewing gum of a new constitution…

Erdoğan needs Kurdish votes to win the metropolitan municipalities.

Or, looking at it from another angle, if the voters who vote for the HDP do not take part in the opposition bloc in the local elections and enter the race with their own candidates as the Good Party did, Erdoğan will once again be the winner of political engineering.

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If the Kurdish voter turns to the HDP, which has the potential to act outside the alliance, or to the ruling party, the opposition will struggle extraordinarily in the local elections.

Erdoğan sees this, but Devlet Bahçeli is an obstacle to the Palace's approach to the HDP.

For this reason, Erdoğan wants to get rid of Bahçeli's shackles with a constitutional amendment before the election.

This is the reason why the Palace wants to change the presidential system and the 50+1, which the MHP sees as a red line.

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The CHP headquarters and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu must also see these moves by Erdoğan.

For this reason, just yesterday, when asked about the Good Party's Metropolitan Mayoral candidate and ‘what will happen to the alliance?’, İmamoğlu said; "The issue of alliance is a process related to parties, not a decision of one person. We are determined to build the social alliance in the strongest way possible."

If the process becomes deadlocked, if the Palace's plan to divide the opposition succeeds, İmamoğlu is actually preparing for a ‘social alliance’—an alliance that the voters themselves will build on him—with his identity that can receive votes from all segments.

At least that is the picture I see… Even if the Good Party, HDP, and CHP enter the race in Istanbul, İmamoğlu's politics, personality, and resonance, which embrace broad segments of voters like glue, will be the only way out to build the ‘social alliance’ in Istanbul…

I have no doubt that this alliance will also affect other cities…