What does the 30-year balance sheet of the IMM elections show?

Erdoğan’s IMM administration (1994-1998) was marked by a populist policy aimed at the urban poor. They were already in need of this. The most concrete indicator of this is the social facilities. The success of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) in the 1994 local elections was the second major move by the Islamist right to gain a foothold in the center. The first was the National Salvation Party (MSP).

The Welfare Party also emerged as the leading party in the 1995 general parliamentary elections. Necmettin Erbakan forced Tansu Çiller to agree to a coalition by blackmailing her with the Supreme Court (Yüce Divan). It would be accurate to evaluate Erdoğan’s mayorship within the general politics from Erbakan’s premiership until the date the Welfare Party was closed. Erdoğan’s mayorship was terminated by the Council of State due to his conviction under Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). From that moment on, every legal obstacle placed in his way facilitated his work in the political arena and gave him strength.

From 1994 until 2004, when Kadir Topbaş was elected IMM mayor, Islamism had not truly come to power in the city. The Welfare Party’s move to establish itself in power was blocked by the February 28 process; Erdoğan was sentenced to a prison term that would be effectively served for 2.5 months in Pınarhisar, and his mayorship was terminated. The Municipal Council elected Welfare Party Group Deputy Chairman Ali Müfit Gürtuna to the vacant mayorship to complete the term. Although this did not seem to change the Welfare Party’s hold on the mayorship, the fact that political power was in the hands of parties aligned against Islamism until 2002 was the primary determinant.

THE REASON FOR ALİ MÜFİT GÜRTUNA’S ELECTION IN 1999

Ali Müfit Gürtuna had entered politics through the Motherland Party (ANAP), joined Islamist circles with the rise of the Welfare Party, and was elected as a municipal council member. Following the termination of Erdoğan’s mayorship, he was brought to the presidency by the municipal council.

Gürtuna’s election as IMM mayor as the candidate of the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi), which was founded to replace the Welfare Party, was a repeat of 1994. This time, the parties opposing the Virtue Party were extremely divided and fragmented. This is the fundamental reason. In this election (1999), the Islamist party (RP/FP) received more or less the same percentage of votes. Ali Talip Özdemir and ANAP were again in second place. This result showed that ANAP still maintained the power of urban center politics in Istanbul. In 1999, ANAP had received far more votes in Istanbul than the True Path Party (DYP): 23% against 4%.

The real reason for Gürtuna’s victory was that the two left-wing parties were rivals to each other. Ecevit’s DSP, which had been on the rise against the CHP since the 1995 elections, finished the election in third place. The DSP candidate Zekeriye Temizel received 20%, while the CHP’s candidate, businessman Adnan Polat, could only finish the election in 4th place with 13% of the vote. We will see the unfortunate candidate of the mayoral elections, Professor Ahmet Vefik Alp, in this election—once again—as the candidate of the MHP, in 2004 as the candidate of the DYP, and in 2009 as the candidate of the DSP.

The Islamist movement was divided into two with the closure of the Virtue Party and the imposition of political bans on Erbakan and his close circle. The wing loyal to the leader of the movement founded the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi), while the reformist wing founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Innovation must have been the pretense of “we have taken off the National View (Milli Görüş) shirt” in the political arena, and the savage capitalism started by Özal in the economic arena. To put it more clearly, Islamist innovation was the name of the policy of joining international finance capital through privatizations and fattening green capital under the hegemony of globalization. There was actually nothing new in innovation. The capitalist class was still there. There was exploitation. Capitalism was roaming around in its most rampant version. What was new was the culture of the capitalist embodied in provincial Islam.

KADİR TOPBAŞ’S MAYORSHIP (2004-2017)

Between 1999 and 2002, the AKP came to power with the collapse of the system’s center parties and the support of the USA. Or rather, it was brought to power. It is only after this that the city began to be governed by Islamist politics. When the AKP came to power, the IMM mayor was Ali Müfit Gürtuna, and the Beyoğlu mayor was Kadir Topbaş.

Kadir Topbaş is the only mayor in the city’s history to have studied architecture. Just glancing at Topbaş’s profile information provides enough clues to understand the social transformation experienced in Istanbul during the republican period. The Topbaş family migrated from Arhavi, Artvin, during the early republican period and started a pudding shop business by settling in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city’s Levantine Pera. The next stage would be the Saray Muhallebicisi near the Saray Cinema. It is significant that Kadir Topbaş was sent to the Istanbul Imam Hatip School while he was initially being educated at the secular Feyziye Schools Foundation. There is a class and cultural basis for his continuing his education after this school at the Higher Islamic Institute in Bağlarbaşı.

It is understood that during the years Topbaş received higher education at the Institute, Saray Muhallebicisi became a considerable city brand. This situation would be further consolidated after the 80s, when Islamist capital became significantly stronger. Meanwhile, we see that Topbaş was accepted into the Higher Architecture department of the Academy of Fine Arts, which is entered through a special talent exam. From his biography, we understand that he graduated from the Islamic Institute in 1972 and from the Academy in 1974. There is a point here that needs clarification, in my opinion. A regulation that exists in our higher education legislation today also existed then. The rule that one cannot study in two undergraduate programs at the same time. But somehow, Topbaş managed to continue studying at both the Bağlarbaşı Higher Islamic Institute and the higher architecture branch of the Academy, and graduated one after the other. Perhaps this has something to do with the tendency of Islamist profiles to collect diplomas, certificates, flight badges, and captaincy certificates. Recently, obtaining a university associate professorship certificate has been added to this. And without ever being present at the academy.

Topbaş’s Higher Architecture diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts facilitated his appointment as a mayoral advisor for survey and restoration works after Erdoğan became mayor in 1994. It should be remembered here that the academy gave a higher architect diploma with 5 years of education. Topbaş’s next notable success, while continuing his consultancy to Mayor Erdoğan, was receiving a Doctorate degree from the Istanbul University Art History department in a surprisingly short time (1997).

With this background, we see that Dr. Higher Architect Kadir Topbaş was elected Beyoğlu District Mayor in the 1999 local government elections -replacing Nusret Bayraktar-. This result was extremely significant in terms of class and culture. Beyoğlu was not just any district of Istanbul. It was Pera.

Topbaş is the only name in the city’s history to be elected metropolitan mayor three times. 2004, 2009, 2014. For this reason, the Istanbul municipal administration of the AKP era can largely be defined as the Dr. Topbaş era.

As the AKP government turned every crisis into an electoral success, it became even stronger at the local level. It solidified its ties with its voter base in an unbreakable way. This bond was actually based on a very simple equation. Instead of taking social state measures to solve urban poverty, it was based on making poverty permanent. It was a policy of creating a dependency relationship provided (through in-kind and cash aid) by the Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundations (general administration) and local governments. The AKP was extremely successful with this method. This was a model of reproducing alms through votes. This was the main reason why the AKP emerged successfully from each of the local elections.

THE MEANING OF ELECTION MAPS

In the elections held between 1994 and 2019, the results at the district level are significant. In the graphics made with coloring, the districts where the city’s old residents live and vote for the CHP have been practically blockaded and suffocated by the surrounding districts that are the AKP’s vote reservoirs. Especially since 2004, no significant change has been seen on the map.

During the 13-year mayorship of Dr. Higher Architect Topbaş, many areas, including forest lands, were converted into luxury housing and commercial areas through zoning changes. The rent created in the Ali Sami Yen Stadium and Tekel Liquor Factory area alone (with luxury residences and offices) must be commensurate with the size of the towers erected.

Galataport and Haliçport projects, the Northern Marmara Motorway, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, the destruction of the Yeşilköy Atatürk Airport, which is the symbol of republican aviation, and the Istanbul Airport project, which will allow the creation of new rent areas in the north of the city, have been projects that the AKP government has carried out hand in hand with AKP municipalism. Under Topbaş’s administration, policies of dispossessing the city’s old residents, pushing them to the outskirts of the city, capitalist domination, and ignoring law and legislation were applied recklessly.

Once the AKP was firmly in power, the city’s resources began to be practically looted by pro-government associations and foundations. These foundations began to produce madrasa-like spaces on the outskirts of the city under the guise of “Service to Knowledge foundations.” Countless associations and foundations were practically fattened with donations, allocated lands, tax exemptions, and cash aid. The natural output of this would be a solid voter base, tightly reinforced by the AKP municipality fortification.

The system worked as follows: The AKP municipality guaranteed the “donation, aid, alms cycle” through sects, foundations, and associations in slum neighborhoods; it ensured that the voter base did not disperse—no matter what. Under these conditions, there was practically no way for the fraud, which was too much to fit into folders, to turn into votes even if you proved it with documents. And that’s what happened. The AKP won the election again and again in 2004, 2009, and 2014.

These successes paved the way for the government in the center to become even stronger and to win more deputies in general elections. Thus, the infrastructure for the government to evolve into an oligarchic structure was established.

In this respect, all metropolitan municipalities were important. But Istanbul was the keystone of the government. During the Topbaş years, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality took on a structure that fed Ankara economically and financially, and was similarly fed back by the political center.

This situation would lead to the development of a number of internal contradictions. Alternative power centers—within green capital—that were relatively independent of the AKP leadership had begun to emerge in the city. I think this is the meaning of Topbaş being forced to resign in 2017 and his son-in-law being arrested on the grounds of his connection to the well-known organization.

The magnitude of the resources created and the volume of accumulated capital meant that individuals who had tendencies to break away from the leadership, if suitable conditions arose, were liquidated by the method of execution and confiscation in contemporary politics. In Ottoman terms, their books were closed.

After 2017, Erdoğan decided to continue his path with men whose loyalty he was completely sure of. Both in municipalities and in the central government. But the result of this would be a general lowering of the profile. This is the reason why former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım was nominated for the IMM in 2019. In other words, the human resources Erdoğan could recruit narrowed and the quality dropped.

CANDIDATES CHP FIELDED AGAINST TOPBAŞ

The CHP nominated Sefa Sirmen from Istanbul in 2004. In this election, the AKP was already in power. This was a huge advantage. It was strange that Sefa Sirmen was brought from Kocaeli and nominated in Istanbul. The only thing that could explain this must be his closeness to Baykal.

When the DSP was defeated in the elections and turned into an “Association of Those Who Love Ecevit,” Baykal became the heir to the empty space on the left. He embarked on some ideological searches like the Anatolian left, which had no equivalent in the voter base. These were empty, futile works. Baykal’s Anatolianism discourse reminds me of Ecevit’s democratic left. A kind of local orientalism with vague content.

While Baykal was looking for the left in Anatolia, the AKP had already captured Anatolia and the urban slums. This period was the first act of the “the one who takes the horse passes Üsküdar” game. This is the reason why Sefa Sirmen remained almost 20 percentage points behind Topbaş. In 2004 Turkey, the AKP is now in power everywhere in every sense. The most concrete proof of this is the Istanbul municipality. The fact that Baykal’s CHP nominated Sirmen as the Istanbul candidate also shows that they were not politically grounded.

KEMAL KILIÇDAROĞLU’S IMM CANDIDACY

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu became a CHP Istanbul deputy starting in 2002, after a failed attempt to join the DSP. He gained Baykal’s trust and rose to the position of TBMM group deputy chairman.

During this period, the AKP was already in power. And the party bigwigs who held the reins were looking to create new rent areas everywhere. “Loans obtained for free” from public banks, tax exemptions, and allocations were giving the opportunists of the new power bloc a golden age. If the legislation was not suitable, laws, statutes, and regulations were ready overnight at lightning speed.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s state experience, his ability to follow documents, and the recklessness of the AKP barons allowed him to easily uncover many abuses. AKP barons of that time, such as Şaban Dişli, Melih Gökçek, and Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, were devastated in TV programs against Kılıçdaroğlu. Interestingly, the names in question had a standard expression in the face of the facts thrown in their faces with thick folders: “the brazen oriental politician.”

I got to know Kılıçdaroğlu in these programs and I was glad, to be honest. He was drawing a profile that was democratic, determined not to let public property be eaten, and extremely in control of his nerves. This was the first image “Piro” gave in front of the public.

These qualities led the CHP leadership to fall into the dream of hitting the government in Istanbul with Kılıçdaroğlu. Hopes rose very high with Kılıçdaroğlu’s TV performances. Ecevit’s populism and Gandhi’s patience were seen in him. However, “Bay Kemal’s” ability to study well and his mastery of abuse files would mean nothing to the AKP masses on the outskirts of the city. They were looking at where the Ramadan food parcel came from. Thus, the dream of overthrowing the AKP hegemony with Kılıçdaroğlu fell through. Kılıçdaroğlu had managed to increase the CHP’s votes. But the government was still ahead.

CANDIDATE MUSTAFA SARIGÜL IN 2014

Mustafa Sarıgül is a phenomenon. He had managed to enter the TBMM as the youngest parliamentarian in the 18th term. During the times when Erdal İnönü was the chairman of the SHP. He was elected Mayor of Şişli in 1999 and 2004. With the populist charisma he gained from this, he fell into the dream that he could displace Baykal. After the tumultuous 2005 Congress, he was liquidated by Baykal. He had an on-and-off relationship with the DSP.

Baykal’s being forced to resign from the CHP chairmanship and Kılıçdaroğlu’s election as general chairman brought Sarıgül back to the nest. Kılıçdaroğlu, the party’s new general chairman who embraced everyone -except Kemalists-, this time tried to take advantage of Sarıgül’s populist charisma and organizational ability in Istanbul against the government. Although Sarıgül also pulled the CHP’s votes up a bit, he could not overcome the power barrier that the AKP had built in the city since 1994. This meant that Topbaş was elected IMM mayor for the third and final time.

CHANGE OF POLITICAL REGIME

After the 2014 local government elections, Turkey held a presidential election by popular vote—as required by the 2007 constitutional amendment. In this election, the new general chairman of the CHP—whom we were initially very hopeful about—put forward the “roof candidate” formula, which went down in our political history as a complete fiasco. From this election, pithy words like “Ekmeleddin for bread, you will go willingly, what is it, he is a professor, he knows languages, I use an interpreter” remained in a corner of our minds. The “roof candidate” Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu formula had no equivalent in politics. İhsanoğlu was a modern-looking Islamist. Kılıçdaroğlu thought he would defeat one Islamist with another. With the suggestions of Dr. Devlet Bahçeli. CHP voters—reluctantly—supported the candidate together with the MHP. The result was a complete disappointment.

In the first presidential election held by popular vote, Erdoğan did not comply with any principle of election legislation and political ethics. For the opposition, this election meant nothing more than following an actor who had stepped onto the stage without ever studying his lesson. After this mise-en-scène ended, Erdoğan took the first step toward turning the executive into a one-man regime. The 2017 referendum, where unstamped ballots were counted as valid and the “the one who takes the horse passes Üsküdar” phrase was used, showed where the regime was heading. With the presidential election held in 2018, the transition to a one-man regime, where all state powers were effectively gathered in the executive, was completed. Until 2019, Turkey spent time with the troubles of realizing that the new regime, which was said to fly Turkey, was a one-person executive without a government, where no one but the president was authorized.

THE MEANING OF EKREM İMAMOĞLU WINNING THE 2019 ELECTIONS

Meanwhile, the elections were held with a sense of solidarity created by the anger accumulated against the AKP leadership due to events such as the AKP economy starting to stumble “because it consumed everything that could be sold,” the increasing dose of the government’s authoritarian tendencies after the Gezi resistance, and the removal of the immunity of some opposition deputies -in an unconstitutional and collective manner-. The 2019 local government elections were entered in such a political environment. Erdoğan’s opponents cast their votes with a spontaneous psychology of unity. This is the fundamental reason why Ekrem İmamoğlu won the 2019 election.

Imamoglu’s election -despite his mandate being canceled once- was ensured by the coming together of the anti-AKP front. The votes that brought Imamoglu to the mayorship for the second time with an overwhelming majority were reaction votes. It is difficult to make an estimate about the ratio of HDP and IYIP votes in this.

Imamoglu is a politician who, despite being elected mayor in the eyes of Istanbulites, had his mandate taken away, yet won again. His administration has been interfered with by the government to an unbelievable extent, and even inspection traps have been set up under the guise of guardianship supervision. The resources that should have been transferred from the central administration have been restricted as much as possible. Despite all this, Imamoglu presents the profile of a mayor who works with sincerity. Meanwhile, he was tried and convicted in an absurd case against the possibility of him becoming a presidential candidate. The decision is under appeal.

WHAT COULD BE THE RESULT?

As of today, when we look at politics, the government has become unable to manage the economy. The country is living on the borders of hyper-inflation. The regime is effectively a regime without a constitution. Elections in Turkey have turned into plebiscite votes that serve the function of maintaining the government’s legitimacy. It should not be forgotten that local government elections will be held under these conditions.

Erdoğan has fielded his most loyal man in Istanbul once again: Murat Kurum. Kurum had many handicapped works from his ministerial period. To this was added the major environmental disaster in Erzincan. His supporters against his rival Imamoglu are well-known: a coalition of conservative forces.

Erdoğan seems determined to take Istanbul from Imamoglu by using the public power at his disposal to the fullest. Imamoglu is actually a symbol, a name who took Istanbul from his hands despite all the obstacles, and managed to govern the city with the scarce means at his disposal despite the traps and dirty tricks. With these talents, he constitutes a serious source of concern for Erdoğan. He is challenging Erdoğan’s power. Although the fact that IYIP and DEM are entering the field with their own candidates seems to have increased the chances of the AKP candidate, the voters will have the final say. Not party administrations.

An important factor in the election: voter registries and ballot box security. Millions of refugees and illegal immigrants are in our country, especially in Istanbul. An uncertain number of refugees have been made voters by being granted citizenship. Given the decisions made by the election judiciary in the last elections, what could be the projection for the election result?

It should not be forgotten that for the vast majority of voters, Imamoglu is a victim. And the government is unsuccessful in every field. It has no gunpowder left other than the politics of polarization. The candidate fielded by the AKP—as seen in the Binali Yıldırım example—is not a bright candidate at all.

If the AKP candidate loses against Imamoglu despite the election judiciary under pressure, all the public power at his disposal, and the pro-government media, it means that a new leader who can overthrow the current government is being born. Just like in 1994, again from Istanbul.