President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday was in Istanbul to address over 650,000 supporters at a massive rally that refreshed confidence for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and their mayor-hopeful Murat Kurum a week ahead of high-stakes local elections.

"The opposition has set Istanbul back 30 years, but we will introduce a new era in this historic city," Erdoğan told a cheering crowd at a sprawling park transformed from an airport in the heart of the city.

As his custom, he tore into his main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), for "reverting the city to trash and mud," from which he said he had "saved Istanbul" first in 1994 when he was elected mayor.

He accused the CHP’s incumbent mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, of undoing everything his administration has accomplished for Istanbul and dragging the city into a "period of interregnum by squandering public resources."

"Because they lack vision and intellect, they have wasted their funds and vacationed while Istanbulites suffered," Erdoğan said, referring to Imamoğlu’s absence from duty during snowstorms and floods in the city. "They do not understand Istanbul or its residents but we are committed to the same principle we had 30 years ago and we will continue serving our people."

Buoyed by a strong showing in last year’s general elections, Erdoğan has set his sights on winning back Istanbul, Türkiye’s economic and cultural powerhouse, from the opposition.

The secular CHP seized control of the metropolitan for the first time since before Erdoğan ruled it as mayor in the 1990s in watershed 2019 polls.

At the time, it was characterized as a major blow to Erdoğan’s two-decade rule when Imamoğlu took the town hall, but the president went on to win a tough presidential election last year that came in the throes of an economic crisis and after massive earthquakes that claimed more than 53,000 lives in southern Türkiye.

Now, Erdoğan is eager to recapture Istanbul, the city where he grew up and where he launched his political career as mayor in 1994.

He has entrusted his former environment minister, Murat Kurum, to run for mayor of Istanbul, hoping to avenge the 2019 defeat.

Kurum's campaign has so far largely focused on the urban transformation of earthquake-prone Istanbul, which sits on a major fault line, as well as strengthening public transport and bolstering technical and social infrastructure.

Citing "unparalleled projects" like new railway lines, metro routes and Istanbul Airport that his government has realized in the city for the past 21 years with a TL 1.6 trillion ($50 billion) investment total, Erdoğan promised to "pick up where we left off from" on April 1.

At a crossroads

"On one side, you have those dismissing the approaching danger of earthquakes, and on the other, you have those planning and acting against disasters, working to ease the city’s traffic and mobilizing all transport means," Erdoğan continued.

He argued that Istanbul stood at a crossroads and stressed that the city "doesn’t have the patience to lose five more years."

"It will make the best decision for itself and side with true municipalism," he said.

Imamoğlu has been facing an onslaught of criticism over increasing incidents, accidents and breakdowns in public transportation affiliated with his office.

The CHP mayor, who edged out the AK Party candidate in a controversial rerun and became an opposition darling for his victory, is championed as an effective political operator by his party, but last year’s poor general election showing fractured the opposition.

The party has since been abandoned by former allies who submitted their own candidates in the local polls, notably the nationalist Good Party (IP) and the Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and a successor of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), broadly known for its ties to the PKK terrorist group.

This could cost the CHP Istanbul, as well as the capital Ankara and even other metropolitan cities.

Since current Chair Özgür Özel took over in a November 2023 vote with Imamoğlu’s backing, the party has been overrun with internal feuds, namely mayoral candidate positions, highlighting a risk of losing all public favor if the CHP loses another key vote next Sunday, frustrating supporters already fed up with back-to-back election defeats.

But the CHP is also accused of clandestinely divvying up mayoral districts for YSP candidates in Istanbul in exchange for the YSP’s indirect endorsement of Imamoğlu, something Erdoğan often describes as a "dirty alliance."

CHP’s ‘ambitions’

On Sunday, the president again lambasted the party for a recent potential bribery scandal that rocked the CHP.

"On top of moving Istanbul back, they’re coming and going with bags of cash," Erdoğan said.

Turkish prosecutors are probing a controversial video showing three CHP officials counting piles of cash, allegedly TL 15 million ($470,000), at the party's Istanbul branch, which critics claimed was used to "buy" delegates in favor of Özel against Kılıçdaroğlu during the November intraparty vote.

The CHP denied the allegations, saying the money was for the purchase of the branch's new building in Istanbul in 2019, and the footage was from the camera of the office of a lawyer representing the property owner. The party blamed the lawyer for leaking the footage and insisted that the said lawyer tried to blackmail the party, though the footage did not have any "criminal actions."

Imamoğlu himself dismissed the claims that money was used for any nefarious purpose and said the video surfaced as an attempt by his adversaries looking to "bring him down before the election."

Slamming the party for failing to produce a logical or satisfying explanation for the scandal, Erdoğan said, "They have dirtied our politics with their schemes, but we will not leave Istanbul into their hands."

"They can keep chasing their self-serving interests. We will be standing firmly at the beck and call of our people," he said.

The upcoming election will test popular support for all competing sides. The AK Party, which has more than 11 million members nationwide, aims to concentrate its program on strategically key provinces, particularly by assigning small groups to make house calls to establish face-to-face communication.

More than 61 million people are eligible to vote, and 1 million young voters will cast their ballots for the first time in this election. More than 50% of the voters are women, while men make up 49.1% of the electorate, according to the statistics. More than 3.3 million of voters are aged 75 and above. Most of the electorate is in 30 big cities, while more than 13.5 million voters will cast their ballots in 51 other cities.

Voters in opposition-run municipalities mostly complain about the lack of municipal services, such as problems in water utilities that lead to frequent water outages and traffic issues stemming from troubles in road construction and improvement of existing roads.