Political Analysis #2

Structure of Turkish politics, a visit to Athens

Hi folks,

I’ve got two items of analysis today: İYİ Party’s decision to strike out on their own and its structural implications for Turkish politics, and Erdoğan’s visit to Athens.

Feel free to submit questions, and I’ll respond either individually or in future posts. I thought I might write about NATO as well, but decided against it.

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So here we go:

The structure of Turkish politics going into 2024

İYİ Party has decided that they're not entering an alliance with the CHP in the 2024 municipal elections. The party will henceforth be “free and unattached” (hür ve müstakil) as they put it. It’s unclear what the left is going to do, but it looks like the HDP (now HEDEP) is also going to field candidates across the board. This means that in most cities, we’re going to see a unified regime candidate campaigning against a broad field of opposition candidates.

There are now a few possible outcomes, not just for election outcomes in 2024, but for the structure of Turkish politics as a whole. So far, elections were roughly a split 50-50 between Erdoğan and non-Erdoğan candidates, with the Erdoğan side generally scoring just above the 50% threshold to win. Erdoğan and his team have mastered that kind of electoral contest.

İYİ Party’s new motto comes from an inscription at Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s mausoleum: “We wish to live free and unattached within our national borders. 1921”

İYİ Party's “free and unattached” claim aims to offer voters a third choice: right-wing politics within a slightly more competitive party structure. It’s not as foolhardy as it may sound at first. Right-wing parties in the opposition always say they're going to steal Erdoğan's votes, but it never works. They just get different slices of the Kemalist/pan-Turkist vote within the opposition's 50%. The only way a right-wing opposition party can get Erdoğan's votes is to fight the CHP and HDP while also fighting Erdoğan. Nobody's done that before.

To be fair, it seems to be a stressful position to be in. Akşener tried it earlier this year. Before the elections, she left the “table of six” with a bitter speech. People were alarmed that she would split the opposition vote and deliver Erdoğan the election, but I actually thought that weekend that it could work out better with İYİ being on their own. A very public fight between İYİ and the CHP was the only way İYİ could poach Erdoğan’s voters, especially in the presidential race. That would have meant that the first round of the presidential race could have seen Erdoğan drop into the low 40s. Even if he ended up being elected in the second round, it would have weakened his claim to represent a comfortable majority.