When 2024 began, few people could anticipate the unprecedented developments in the months to come in Turkish politics where stalwarts and alliances were rarely shifted for years.
The year began on a sad note with the killing of nine soldiers in northern Iraq in an attack by the PKK terrorist group. It was the highest death toll in recent years in a PKK attack against Turkish soldiers. The aftermath of the attack was a sign of a deep divide between parties as the opposition was reluctant to join a joint declaration for commitment to counterterrorism. Although ruling and opposition parties agreed to a declaration by Parliament at the last minute, the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), preferred to issue a separate declaration later.
January was also the month candidates for the March 31 municipal elections eagerly awaited for approval of their nominations. The CHP has already announced several candidates but wrapped up their entire candidate list in January. In big cities including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, it fielded incumbent Mayors Ekrem Imamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş as candidates. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) nominated former Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum as a rival to Imamoğlu in Istanbul while it preferred Turgut Altınok, mayor of Ankara district Keçiören, in the race against Yavaş in the capital.
The following months transpired with intense campaigns of political parties for the municipal elections. The AK Party, which had rarely conceded an election in more than two decades, was confident but cautious as the 2019 municipal vote saw big cities lose to the CHP. The CHP, in the meantime, boosted its alliance with smaller opposition parties, securing their support for CHP candidates.
The elections marked a turning point for all parties that sought to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party since 2002. The AK Party suffered from unprecedented losses in municipalities and garnered slightly more than 35% of the vote, while the CHP won more than 37.7% of the votes in an election with a turnout of 78.5%. Along with Istanbul and Ankara and its longstanding stronghold Izmir, tje CHP won in AK Party bastions such as the eastern province of Adıyaman and the fourth-largest city Bursa.
The election losses led the AK Party to do some soul-searching and indeed, Erdoğan’s first comments on the outcome focused on empathy with voters disillusioned with his party. The president pledged “changes” in his party to regain the trust of the electorate and later, launched a calendar of provincial and district congresses that involved several branch chairs of the party stepping down. The congresses are still underway and expected to end in 2025 with more changes in party’s cadres.
An unprecedented outcome of the election was “normalization” between the AK Party and the CHP after years of sharp political rivalry. On April 23, Erdoğan met CHP leader Özgür Özel in an informal meeting, the first since Özel was elected as head of his party in November 2023. In May, the president hosted Özel at the headquarters of the AK Party. In June, Erdoğan made a return visit to CHP headquarters, a first in 18 years for the president. In the following months, the CHP’s “shadow ministers” held talks with their counterparts in the government.
The election also cost Meral Akşener, a former interior minister and veteran politician, her seat as leader of the opposition Good Party (IP). After winning only 3.7% of the vote in municipal elections, the party decided to hold an intraparty election, with Akşener announcing she would not run for the race. In May, she handed the reins to Müsavat Dervişoğlu after he won an intraparty election. Similarly, Temel Karamollaoğlu, head of the Felicity Party (SP), stepped down after poor electoral results and Mahmut Arıkan was elected as the new chair in November.
Party leaders were not the only ones to lose their seats. 2024’s first and only Cabinet reshuffle came in July. Fahrettin Koca, the health minister who steered Türkiye’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, handed his seat to Kemal Memişoğlu, Istanbul's director of his ministry. Murat Kurum, returned to his former post as minister of environment, urban planning and climate change, taking over from Mehmet Özhaseki.
For Parliament, 2024 was a year of quarrels and a landmark bill. Heated discussions at Parliament between the ruling party and opposition lawmakers occasionally elevated to fisticuffs.
The landmark bill in question was the animal protection bill passed by Parliament on July 30. The bill was proposed by the AK Party amid a recent spate of canine attacks that killed children. The opposition, with the aid of animal rights groups, led a campaign claiming it amounted to the mass killing of stray dogs, while families who lost children to attacks visited Parliament to campaign in favor of the bill. Under the bill, municipalities will have to get the strays off the streets and into shelters. Any dogs that “present a danger to the life or health of people and animals, display uncontrollable negative behavior, have a contagious or incurable disease or whose adoption is forbidden” will be put down. An initial version of the bill included an article calling to euthanize dogs that are in pain, terminally ill, posing a health risk or too aggressive to be controlled. The term was removed in the final draft that passed at the 600-seat Parliament with 275 to 224, voting in favor of it. Under previous legislation, municipalities had to neuter and vaccinate all street dogs and leave them where they were found following treatment.
The law requires animals in shelters to be registered in the database of the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry and rehabilitated dogs to be housed in shelters until they are adopted, amending a previous clause that included cats and other street animals. The law increases the ministry’s budget for stray animals and upholds practices like denigrating dogs, digital identification and chipped monitoring. The population of street dogs in Türkiye is estimated to be 4 million, and municipalities have neutered around 2.5 million in the past 20 years. The animals are often taken care of by neighborhood residents and treated like pets. Municipalities must now spend at least 0.3% of their annual budget on animal rehabilitation services and building shelters. Municipalities will be given time until 2028 to build new shelters and improve current shelters, the law says. The legislation also bans abandoning stray animals anywhere outside a shelter or releasing a dog from a shelter, aiming to ensure that municipalities completely fulfill their duties as stipulated by this law.
As for Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş, it was a year of debate over a new constitution. Kurtulmuş visited almost all parties to hear their views on a new constitution proposed by the AK Party, though the debate lingered into 2025 with no concrete outcome. The AK Party has been pushing to overhaul Tükiye’s Constitution for over a decade now, which was enforced in 1982 following a military coup that led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions. It still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
Erdoğan insists the Turkish nation is “owed a civilian, libertarian and inclusive” new constitution, and the AK Party has a comprehensive draft prepared by a scientific council during the pandemic, which it’s hoping to submit to Parliament. AK Party ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also has a constitutional draft including over 100 articles. At least 400 lawmakers must ratify a new constitution draft in Parliament. Anything over 360 votes would allow a referendum, allowing the people to decide. The AK Party attempted an overhaul in 2007 when it employed a commission to produce a draft, but it was shelved upon heated criticism from the opposition. Since then, the party has been working on “stronger” material. Its proposed changes focused on freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech and the rights of women and people with disabilities.
Parliament also had a special guest this year. On Aug. 15, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared before lawmakers to a thunderous applause. Lawmakers and President Erdoğan listened to Abbas as he fiercely defended the Palestinian cause in the face of Israeli atrocities led by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who made a speech at U.S. Congress in July, often interrupted by bipartisan applause. He saluted the solidarity of the people of Türkiye with Palestinians amid the Palestine-Israel conflict and appreciated Türkiye’s official policy that made the Palestinian cause central to its efforts.
Abbas's speech, which lasted less than one hour, was often interrupted by applause from lawmakers, who returned from a summer recess for Abbas. Everyone in attendance wore shawls with flags of Türkiye and Palestine as they listened attentively to the Palestinian leader. Abbas warned against Israel’s attempts to spread the conflict to the wider Middle East, adding that they won’t allow Zionists to try to control the whole region. The president said Gaza cannot be considered a separate entity and it was part of the Palestine state, adding that Israel’s genocide aimed to destroy the entire Palestinian state. He stated that Israel's war criminals would not go unpunished as he cited ongoing cases of genocide against the Netanyahu administration for what transpired in Gaza. Abbas slammed the United States, which he termed a “plague” for its “relentless” support of Israel. He said he would work with all Palestinians to stop Israeli aggression even if it means “risking my life.” He also stated that he would visit Gaza and reiterated that Gaza, along with the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem are part of the Palestinian state.
"I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership," Abbas said to a standing ovation from Turkish lawmakers. "I will do that. Even if this would cost my life. Our lives are not more worthy than the life of a child," he added. He said that the Palestinian people would stand tall despite the Israeli strikes. "Gaza is ours as a whole. We don't accept any solution that would divide our territories," he told Parliament. "There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender," he promised.
Though the public grew accustomed to the unprecedented CHP-AK Party normalization in 2024, one thing they did not expect was MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli shaking hands with lawmakers of the Peoples’ Equality Party (DEM Party) during an opening session of the parliament in October. After all, Bahçeli was the fiercest critic of the PKK-linked party. This was actually the first part of Bahçeli’s apparent plan to surprise millions more. On Oct. 15, he said in a speech at the parliamentary group meeting of his party that PKK jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan should unilaterally announce the dissolution of the terrorist group. He took this call one step further in another speech on Oct. 22 and called the state to grant a temporary release for Öcalan so that “he can speak at the parliamentary group meeting of the DEM Party and announce the PKK was dissolved.”
The MHP leader’s statements, which were described as “a historic window of opportunity” by President Erdoğan, confused the opposition while former nationalists who fell out with the MHP accused Bahçeli of aligning with terrorists. Bahçeli repeatedly underlined that he would never advocate negotiating with terrorists but pointed out that the terrorist group persisted as a threat for decades and may need another approach. His remarks also served as a litmus test for the opposition, which courted the DEM Party at the same time it courted nationalist voters, two opposite sides of the Turkish political spectrum. The DEM Party, for a long time, skillfully dodged branding PKK's activities as terrorism and instead, focused on a rhetoric of "peace between peoples" or rather Kurds and Turks. The PKK advocates for a Kurdish separatist entity while its opponents reject ethnic separatism. Bahçeli says Turks and Kurds are inseparable parts of one state and urges the Kurdish community not to fall for the PKK's separatist propaganda.
Shortly after Bahçeli’s statements, Öcalan’s nephew who also happens to be a DEM Party lawmaker, visited him in the island prison where is he being held. Öcalan’s first message through his nephew was brief but positive. In the last week of December, the DEM Party sent two more lawmakers, Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, to visit Öcalan.
This time, Öcalan was more straightforward. "Reinforcing Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood is a historic responsibility and is a matter of importance and emergency for all peoples," Öcalan said in his statements quoted by the DEM Party.
He said it was essential for all political circles in Türkiye to take the initiative without being confined to "narrow calculations," "act constructive" and "provide a positive contribution" for this new process to succeed. Öcalan said the Parliament session he was urged to come to would be "undoubtedly one of the most important grounds for 'this contribution.'" "Incidents in Gaza and Syria demonstrated that the solution to this problem that is being aggravated by external intervention cannot be delayed any longer. The opposition's contributions and suggestions are valuable to achieve success in this solution," he added. "I have the capability and resolve to contribute positively to this new paradigm empowered by Mr. Bahçeli and Mr. Erdoğan. My approach will be shared with the state and political circles. I am ready to take the positive step and make the call. Our efforts will advance the country to the level it deserves and will be a guideline for a democratic transformation. It is a time of peace, democracy and brotherhood for Türkiye and the region," Öcalan concluded.
