President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s next stopover on the campaign trail was the western city of Manisa. A bastion of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Manisa embraced Erdoğan in a crowded rally ahead of the March 31 municipal elections. Manisa is also the hometown of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel, and Erdoğan did not miss the opportunity to take jabs at Özel. “We will free you too,” Erdoğan said, in reference to Özel’s first name, which means “free” in Turkish and another reference to what he called the CHP's bowing down to the demands of its “secret” allies.
Erdoğan hailed Manisa’s overwhelming support for his presidency, noting he won 50% of the vote in the 2023 presidential elections and for the AK Party, which garnered 49% of the vote in Manisa in the legislative vote last year. “Another epic is in the making,” Erdoğan told a cheering crowd.
“You know this guy who cannot run his own party and yet tries to make his voice heard here,” he told the crowd about Özel, citing his failure to draw the support of the CHP’s stalwarts opposing his choice of mayoral candidates without consulting them.
“Let him not worry. He will soon be freed from his shackles. His end will be the same as his predecessor who failed to secure an election win for the CHP 13 times,” he said, in reference to Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
“They have no vision, no projects planned for cities, for the nation. They are all talk. You see how we work in 81 cities for introducing new municipal services in line with our vision of 'Century of Türkiye,'” Erdoğan said. Erdoğan has unveiled an ambitious list of projects in every field from justice to infrastructure ahead of the centenary of the Republic of Türkiye and often highlights it in his election campaign.
The municipal elections will be the first test for Özel, who defeated party stalwart Kılıçdaroğlu in a race for the top seat in the CHP last November. Kılıçdaroğlu’s lackluster record against the AK Party paved the way for Özel’s rise. Since then, the lawmaker, who himself suffered defeats in past municipal elections in which he ran for the mayor’s office in his hometown, incurred the wrath of the party’s loyal supporters for what critics call an "undemocratic" candidate-picking process.
Özel and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who allegedly had a hand in picking candidates, came under fire by some CHP stalwarts for the lack of transparency in the process and turning a blind eye to calls to nominate certain candidates. Özel told supporters recently that “a few people pulled the party into a debate and we have those who try to take credit for what the party has done collectively,” he said.
Özel claimed that they listened to the “man on the street” while picking candidates. CHP leaders often boasted an intraparty democracy at every level, and the party’s prominent members sought to portray their arguments as part of the criticism requisite of democracy. Yet, the latest elections where the CHP seeks to recoup its losses from last May’s general election apparently changed that.
