President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comments on Türkiye’s relations with Egypt and the Gaza crisis made headlines, but his remarks on the municipal election deserve attention as well. Emboldened by his victory in the May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, he remains confident that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will win the upcoming local election. Erdoğan, who has been highlighting the opposition’s fragmentation and the intra-party power struggle within the Republican People’s Party (CHP) for some time, took an additional step forward: "March 31 will be the day when we will see some leaving the political arena for good. Just as some have been removed on May 28, others will face a similar end even though they try to stay on their feet for now."

Speaking in Samsun, Erdoğan added that the CHP leadership was engaged in a bitter fight over competing interests and lacked an agenda and projects: "Their old and new chairmen, their mayoral candidates and those who were not nominated are all focused on seizing CHP’s control after the election. Who will keep it in the end? They cannot stop undermining each other and stabbing each other in the back for that purpose. Could people with such a mindset actually seek to make investments?"

Having won 17 elections to date, the Turkish president is campaigning for the AK Party for the 18th time by taking jabs at the main opposition party – which happens to be pretty ordinary. What makes the current campaign different is the high level of the CHP’s fragmentation, the intensity of the intra-CHP power struggle and the strength of the popular perception that the main opposition is in no shape to provide services, implement projects and actually govern.

That is why many CHP voters, who are unhappy with their party’s leadership, probably welcome Erdoğan’s criticism of the main opposition party.

Search for a third way

Indeed, even pro-opposition commentators express concern over the CHP leadership’s attitude – that they take voters for granted – and the possibility of losing mayoral races in CHP strongholds. It goes without saying that such comments are intended to scare the CHP base into consolidation. Yet the search for a third way, which gains popularity within the opposition, represents the single most significant phenomenon of the local election campaign. The Good Party (IP), the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP) – informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the Victory Party (ZP), the New Welfare Party (YRP) and others have already decided to ride that wave. In contrast, the CHP remains least capable of managing that process.

With CHP Chairperson Özgür Özel still trying to join forces with the YSP in several major cities, he cannot measure up to his predecessor’s ability to unite the opposition. That is mainly due to the main opposition’s failure to take advantage of the electoral alliances of 2019 and 2023. The fact remains that those alliances were designed to make the AK Party lose and help the opposition win – not to score points for the CHP. Yet the pro-CHP circles, which constantly criticized and even attacked the IP and other right-wing fringe parties, underestimated the risk that those movements took and exaggerated their own achievements. Let us recall that the Future Party (GP) and Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) highlighted that challenge repeatedly.

The new trend within the opposition is to explore the possibility of politics without joining forces with the CHP – to transcend alliances and win over AK Party and CHP supporters.

Having tried to select its mayoral candidates for months, the main opposition party now faces a backlash from its nationwide organization. The problems with that state of fragmentation and rivalry cannot be addressed with pro-CHP commentators complaining about the birth of an "alliance designed to make CHP lose."

I also disagree with the claim that a "grand right-wing coalition" has emerged against the main opposition party. It is possible to view such statements and arguments as parts of an attempt to push pro-opposition voters toward the CHP.

Instead, I must say that the March 31 election promises to mark the beginning of a new chapter where political parties and voters will see the politics of alliances very differently.