Amid Huge Disappointment: How the Turkish Opposition Failed in the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections

Strikes continue to hit the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Turkiye after its leader was late in the first round of the presidential elections and the loss of its majority in parliament.

Recently, the withdrawing presidential candidate, Muharrem Ince, issued a statement attacking the CHP, amid resignations and dismissals that have hit the opposition party since the May 14 vote.

This came in conjunction with a crisis that sparked widespread controversy in Turkiye due to the party’s supporters attacking those affected by the earthquake because they supported Erdogan, as a result of which Kilicdaroglu was forced to intervene to fix what his supporters had done.

CHP supporters also expressed their annoyance at the huge defeat their party suffered in the parliamentary elections, while others pointed out that the six-party alliance came in favor of the small parties and did not achieve its goals in the presidential elections.

Among other things, the election results exposed the opposition’s limited ability to seize on the disgruntlement of a populace reeling from an economic crisis and, in the southeast, a devastating earthquake.

 

Unexpected Results

Until soon, most public opinion polls and Western media predicted a landslide victory for the opposition camp in the parliamentary and presidential elections.

However, the results were a surprise to everyone after it led to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan winning 49.52% of the vote, compared to 44.88% for his rival, opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in a swing result that put the competitors in front of a second run-off after 10 days.

This result coincided with another of great importance related to the parliamentary elections, which led to the ruling People’s Alliance, which includes the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the National Movement (MHP), winning a majority in parliament with 323 out of 600 seats, despite the decrease in the number of its deputies.

Although the AKP led the electoral race throughout the country, the number of its seats now (268 seats) fell from the 2018 elections (295 seats), while the seats of the MHP increased, as it had won 49 seats in 2018, and in these elections it won 50 seats. The Welfare Party also entered the parliament for the first time with 5 seats, surprisingly recorded in these elections.

The Nation’s Alliance, which includes the CHP and the Good Party (IYI), and which was pinning its hopes on a parliamentary majority that would contribute to changing the current constitution and system of government, suffered a great disappointment and achieved only 212 seats.

The Labor and Freedom Alliance, which includes the Green Left Party (YSP) and the Turkish Workers’ Party (TIP), won 65 seats in parliament; and if we add up the seats of the Labor and Freedom and the Nation’s Alliances, they get a total of 277, which is less than the seats of the ruling People’s Alliance (323 seats).

Separately, the CHP won 169 seats in the May 14 elections, as it had 146 deputies in parliament in the 2018 elections.

Despite this large number, the number of deputies of the CHP decreased, as 5 parties loyal to it ran in the elections on the lists of the same party, and there were joint lists, and the rest of the parties have 39 deputies among them, which reduced the number of CHP deputies to 130, less than the average of the 2018 elections.

The Democracy and Progress Party won 14 deputies from the CHP lists, the Felicity Party (Saadet) won 10 seats, and the Future Party (Gelecek) won 10 seats, while the Democrat Party (DP) won 3 seats, one seat for the Change Party, and one seat for the Good Party, thanks to the joint lists in some states.

After the establishment of the so-called six-party table in February 2022, the leader of the CHP justified his alliance with the four parties as a way to attract the votes of conservative supporters of the AKP.

With the emergence of electoral results, the surprise was that these parties obtained 37 seats in parliament through the lists of the CHP, although the percentage of votes obtained by these four parties combined is 1%, while the percentage of votes for Kilicdaroglu in the conservative states in central and northern Anatolia was the same before and after the establishment of the six-party table.

The CHP also lost two more parliamentary seats to the Good Party and the Change Party, thanks to their entering the parliamentary elections on joint lists with the CHP.

The parliamentary representation of the Good Party also decreased to 43 deputies in the 2023 elections instead of 44 deputies in the 2018 elections, which exposed Meral Aksener, the head of the Good Party, to severe criticism within the corridors of her party.

In a televised interview on the Turkish A Haber channel, Bulent Turan, deputy head of the AKP group in the Turkish parliament, said: “The CHP, led by Kilicdaroglu, has been subjected to the biggest deception in the history of Turkish politics through the Democracy and Progress, Felicity, Future, and Democrat parties.”

 

Resignations Don’t Stop

In the latest blows to the Turkish opposition after losing the parliamentary elections and not achieving any advantage in the presidential race, the withdrawing presidential candidate, Muharrem Ince, issued a statement on May 16, 2023, attacking the CHP, stressing that the Turkish people do not recognize those who turn a blind eye to terrorist organizations.

Ince said, according to what was published by Turkish media, “Some leaders of the CHP cooperated with elements of the PKK and FETO to defame his reputation,” which forced him to withdraw from the presidential race.

He added, “If I had not withdrawn, they would have held me responsible for what happened, but I withdrew, and now it is confirmed that Muharrem Ince was right, but it was too late.”

In the first aftershocks of that heavy defeat, Onursal Adiguzel, the deputy chairman of the CHP, who led the elections and propaganda team responsible for monitoring the vote, resigned from his position in the party.

On the evening of May 15, 2023, Adiguzel posted on his Twitter account his resignation letter, saying in it: “I have decided to leave my duties in the CHP because of the negative conviction generated by public opinion after the election results were announced.”

The Turkish A Haber website said that the leader of the CHP, Kilicdaroglu, expelled Adiguzel due to the delay in the appearance of the preliminary results of the elections in the electronic system prepared by the opposition in advance.

Reports suggest that there was confusion within the party on election night, which infuriated Kilicdaroglu.

Kilicdaroglu also opted not to renew the contract with the company that managed his election campaign, headed by Ali Kiremitcioglu and Akan Abdulla.

Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and the chairman of the CHP branch in Istanbul, Canan Kaftancioglu, are expected to play a more influential role in the upcoming round, according to sources.

Imamoglu will use his consultants that currently work at Istanbul Planning Agency, an Istanbul Municipality subsidiary led by Emrah Sahan and his adviser Gokhan Gunaydin.

Later on May 16, Kilicdaroglu appointed Mehmet Ali Yuksel, a CHP official representing Istanbul’s impoverished Kagithane district, as his adviser for elections and electoral propaganda.

On the other hand, the resignations also hit the Good Party with the first hours of the results of the parliamentary elections. At the head of those who resigned, the party’s economic policy official Ozcan Kadioglu, who was presented by Aksener during the election campaign, stated that he would be the supervisor of the economy file alongside Kilicdaroglu if he won the elections.

Ozcan stated that he decided to postpone submitting his resignation until after the completion of the parliamentary elections and the announcement of the results, which he said were expected in light of the party’s poor performance during the last period, especially during the electoral campaign.

Aytun Ciray, senior advisor to the party’s president and a former parliamentarian for the party in Izmir, decided not to run in the current parliamentary elections because of his fear that the party would not cross the electoral threshold to enter parliament, estimated at 7%, adding, in a tweet via his account, that the poor performance of the party and its leaders is the reason for taking that step.

In turn, political analyst Feras al-Merie explained in a statement to Al-Estiklal that the results of the presidential elections proved that Kemal Kilicdaroglu failed to attract new segments and the current opposition alliance could not get what it got when it was scattered in the 2018 elections.

“Also, the biggest loss for the CHP was in parliament, as Kilicdaroglu made a mistake when he thought that including 4 parties from the six-party table under the party’s list might be a window of hope for him to obtain the votes of conservative voters in the presidential race,” he added.

“As a result, I see that Kilicdaroglu lost both the presidential and parliamentary races, and he added two more losses to his record of failures against Erdogan,” Mr. Feras said.

 

Huge Disappointment

The Western media, which attacked Erdogan before the elections, recognized the strong position that the Turkish president still enjoys following the release of the presidential results.

In a reading of the results, The Economist magazine, which had previously written on its cover that “Erdogan must leave,” said that the results are the worst for the Turkish opposition, noting that the Turkish president confounded polls.

The magazine said that the elections were not enough for a clear victory for the current ruler of Turkiye, but it was the worst thing the opposition imagined in the country, adding that the results of the opposition candidate were much lower than the polls and than Kilicdaroglu himself expected.

As for the German magazine Der Spiegel, which showed on one of its covers before the elections the Ottoman crescent and the symbol of the Turkish state broken, and a broken throne on which Erdogan sits, said that Erdogan still enjoys a large popular base, considering that about 30% of the voters who support the Turkish president stand by him unconditionally and trust him and believe that he will lead the country to a good future.

About the opposition candidate, the German magazine said that Kilicdaroglu failed to live up to expectations, despite his lead in polls.

It concluded that “Kilicdaroglu faces an almost impossible task in the coming days, as he must re-establish his frustrated supporters, and he must restore their belief that winning the run-off election is still possible.”

On its part, the French magazine Le Point, which had compared Erdogan before the elections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that “the Turkish president will go through a favorable second round to win a new presidential term.”

It pointed out that “Erdogan clearly topped the results of the first round, and he must run in the second round against the most prominent opposition candidate, Kilicdaroglu, on May 28.”

It considered that President Erdogan obtained very positive results during the first round of the presidential elections in Turkiye, adding that Erdogan had more than two million votes ahead of his direct competitor, which seemed sufficient to win the second round in his favor without much trouble.

As for the French magazine L’Express, which put on its latest cover the headline Erdogan, the danger of chaos, it said that the anti-Erdogan tsunami did not happen.

It noted that “44% inflation, a currency that had halved in value in two years, and the disastrous management of the February 6 earthquake were not enough to remove Erdogan.”

It noted that “the Turkish president’s 49% of the vote in the first round puts him in a good position for the second round.”

It added, “This is despite the fact that polls were in favor of his rival, Kilicdaroglu, but Erdogan’s electoral base is solid.”