All ballots were counted as of Monday after millions went to the polls to elect mayors for a five-year term on Sunday. Unofficial results were released by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), while final, official results are expected to be announced within days. After that declaration, mayors will obtain official documents for taking office.
YSK Chair Ahmet Yener told journalists at a news conference that the main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), won mayoral seats in 35 provinces, according to the unofficial results. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) won mayoral seats in 24 provinces. It was followed by the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), a successor of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which secured mayoral seats in 10 provinces. The AK Party's main ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), won in eight provinces.
Apart from losses for the AK Party, the highlight of this election is lower voter turnout, around 78.1%, compared to 84.6% in the 2019 municipal election and more than 84% in the second round of presidential elections last May. As some political pundits claimed, it is uncertain whether voter apathy linked to the same parties winning all the time played a role in low turnout. It might be associated with the election being held in Ramadan, Islam's month of fasting in which the faithful abstain from eating and drinking from dawn until more than one hour after the polls closed.
Apathy or not, elections were a major failure, especially for fledgling parties, which already lagged far behind the well-established AK Party or the oldest party, the CHP. Parties like the Felicity Party (SP) were accustomed to low rates, but parties helmed by former veterans of the AK Party suffered a heavy defeat in the municipal election, their last shot at political glory. Neither the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) of the AK Party's former economy czar Ali Babacan nor former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's Future Party (GP) achieved results below 0.1% of the vote. The DEVA at least secured the mayoral seat of Çelikhan, a small town in the eastern province of Adıyaman, where the CHP dealt a surprise defeat to the AK Party.
The Homeland Party (MP) led by former presidential hopeful Muharrem Ince won only a "belde," a constituency smaller than a regular town, in Sorgun of the Yozgat province. The Democratic Left Party (DSP), which once ruled the country under the leadership of late leader Bülent Ecevit, won only one town.
The New Welfare Party (YRP), which endorsed the People's Alliance in general elections, made a name for itself in the municipal elections by winning two major municipalities, Yozgat in the Anatolian heartland and Şanlıurfa, a southeastern province populated with traditionally conservative voters. Portraying itself as a successor to the now-defunct Welfare Party (RP), which propelled President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's early political career, the YRP courted AK Party voters in the municipal polls. AK Party officials, including Erdoğan, had thinly veiled criticism towards the YRP, blaming them for attempting to "divide" votes of the AK Party. In Adıyaman, the YRP is blamed for ending the long rule of the AK Party by garnering nearly 14% of the vote and eventually helping the CHP to secure almost half of the vote in this AK Party stronghold.
In the meantime, a secret alliance played into the hands of the CHP. The YSP is credited with helping the CHP win in provinces traditionally governed by the AK Party.
The YSP rallied its voters for CHP candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in last year's presidential elections, but Erdoğan, though in a runoff, secured another term anyway. Kılıçdaroğlu, meanwhile, lost his seat as the CHP's chair. His successor, Özgür Özel, courted the YSP for municipal election alliance, though his alliance ambitions initially fell apart when the YSP fielded its own candidates. Yet, the party signaled that they could have what they called "urban consensus" to support CHP candidates in certain places where the opposition party has a higher chance. The party's critics, including President Erdoğan, branded it as a "dirty alliance" in his election campaign for the AK Party.
Pundits say YSP voters were instrumental in helping the CHP's incumbent Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, secure another term on Sunday. The YSP's Istanbul candidate, Meral Danış Beştaş, a prominent name in the party, garnered slightly over 2% of the vote. It is rather underwhelming for the party whose former co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş won more than 9% of the presidential vote in 2014 in Istanbul. The CHP already bowed down to the YSP's demands in certain constituencies, recruiting candidates with an HDP background for municipal assembly nominations.
In a statement following her loss, Beştaş told reporters that Imamoğlu should not boast the vote he won.
"These are not votes he won by himself. Our voters voted for him," she said.
Beştaş claimed that the Turkish media helped promote two campaigns only, one for the ruling party and one for the opposition, blaming this for her loss. She said the electorate of her party apparently sought to "punish AK Party" by voting for İmamoğlu, in a bitter admission for her own defeat. She did not openly say defeat, though.
On the contrary, she claimed they did not lose as they secured the third spot. "We are well aware of what our voters did and how they were forced to do it," she said. But instead of piling up blame on the voters who apparently lacked their own will, Beştaş said voters were, on the contrary, "skilled enough to steer the vote."
Being a celebrity does not translate into a popular political image, as the municipal elections showed. Most celebrities running for mayoral seats lost.
Erdal Beşikçioğlu was probably the most successful among them, garnering more than 55% of the vote for the CHP in the capital's Etimesgut. Endeared for his portrayal of a troubled police officer in the popular TV series "Behzat Ç.: An Ankara Detective Story," Beşikçioğlu was controversially promoted by the CHP based on his fictional character fighting for justice and against corruption rather than a real personality.
Davut Güloğlu, a former singer running for the YRP, lost to the AK Party in the northern province of Düzce despite winning 29.5% of the vote, an unprecedented rate for the YRP. This loss comes in the aftermath of Güloğlu's notorious confrontation with a citizen during his campaign rally.
Hakan Peker, a popstar of the 1990s, ran for the Good Party (IP) in historic Safranbolu in the north but secured only around 3% of the vote.
Mehmet Fatih Maçoğlu, a celebrity mayor in his own right as Türkiye's only Communist mayor, lost in Kadıköy, an upscale and traditionally left-wing district of Istanbul, hundreds of kilometers away from his former municipality Tunceli in the east. Maçoğlu, running on the Turkish Communist Party (TKP) ticket again, won only around 10% of the vote, far behind CHP's candidate, which secured more than 68% of the vote.
TV personalities Mesut Yar and Irfan Değirmenci lost in their constituencies, popular resort town Datça and Ankara's Çankaya, respectively. In Hatay, footballer Gökhan Zan won only around 2% of the vote.
Celebrity climber Nasuh Mahruki, running as an independent in Istanbul's Beşiktaş, came third against the CHP and MHP candidates.
Children of popular figures, in the meantime, emerged victorious. Lal Denizli, daughter of Mustafa Denizli, a coach with the rare title of coaching Turkish football's "big three" Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray and Beşiktaş, won the election in her father's hometown Çeşme, where she ran for the CHP.
Mehmet Kemal Yazıcıoğlu, son of legendary governor Recep Yazıcıoğlu, won the mayoral seat of the northern province of Tokat, where he ran for MHP.
Although their political representation is high elsewhere, namely in Parliament, women lagged behind men in the number of candidates. Only 11% of the candidates among thousands of candidates were women. Unofficial results show women won mayoral seats in 11 provinces. Some were stalwarts like Gaziantep's Fatma Şahin or Aydın's Özlem Çerçioğlu. Others were newcomers, such as Burcu Köksal, the first mayor in years for the CHP in Afyonkarahisar. In Istanbul's three districts, women, all from the CHP, won the vote. One of the highest numbers of female mayors was in Izmir, where women won eight districts' mayoral seats.
Another highlight of the election was young candidates, mostly those born in the 1990s with little memory of the pre-AK Party era in Turkish politics. Eren Ali Bingöl, 31, of the CHP won the Tuzla district on Istanbul's Asian side, ending the long reign of the AK Party. Tamer Mandalinci, 30, another CHP candidate, secured the mayoral seat in the popular holiday destination Bodrum. In the Avcılar district of Istanbul, 33-year-old Utku Caner Çaykara, who ran on a CHP ticket, garnered more than half of the vote. In the AK Party, 36-year-old Özkan Çetinkaya was among the youngest mayor. Çetinkaya was ahead of the MHP's candidate at more than 33% of the vote, according to the official results.
