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Türkiye's Local Vote a Test for Erdogan and Rival Imamoglu

Official ballots are displayed on a table during the Turkish municipal elections, in Istanbul on March 31, 2024. (AFP)
Official ballots are displayed on a table during the Turkish municipal elections, in Istanbul on March 31, 2024. (AFP)
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Türkiye's Local Vote a Test for Erdogan and Rival Imamoglu

Official ballots are displayed on a table during the Turkish municipal elections, in Istanbul on March 31, 2024. (AFP)
Official ballots are displayed on a table during the Turkish municipal elections, in Istanbul on March 31, 2024. (AFP)

Türkiye holds municipal elections across 81 provinces on Sunday March 31, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP) aiming to reclaim cities it lost in 2019, including the country's largest city of Istanbul and the capital Ankara.

On Sunday, polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 4 p.m. in eastern provinces and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the rest of the country. Initial results are expected by 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Sunday.

Analysts see the vote as a nationwide gauge of Erdogan's support and the opposition's durability, especially that of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Istanbul. A tight race is expected in the city that is home to more than 16 million people and drives more than a quarter of the nation's GDP.

WHAT'S AT STAKE?

In the last local vote in 2019, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) shocked Erdogan when it prevailed in Istanbul and Ankara and ended more than two decades of rule by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors.

Erdogan, who has ruled Türkiye for more than two decades and campaigned hard for the AKP in recent weeks, launched his political career as mayor of Istanbul in 1994.

Almost 11 million people are eligible to vote in the city, the Supreme Election Council says. Turnout in both general and local elections is very high in Türkiye at close to 90%.

Incumbent CHP Mayor Imamoglu's main challenger is the AKP's Murat Kurum, a former government minister. Polls give Imamoglu a slight edge.

Last May, Erdogan was re-elected president and his alliance won a majority in parliament in tight general elections - a result that splintered and disheartened an alliance of the CHP and other opposition parties.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The budget of Istanbul metropolitan municipality dwarfs all other 80 cities in the country at 516 billion lira ($16.05 billion) in 2024, including its subsidiaries. The budget of the second city, Ankara, is 92 billion.

Controlling big cities and their budgets can give parties say over financing, contracts and job creation, boosting their popularity on the national stage.

Istanbul holds special importance for Erdogan as he rose to the national political stage during his time as mayor between 1994 and 1998.

Imamoglu has emerged as the opposition's main alternative to Erdogan. If he wins a second mayoral term, he would very likely run in the next presidential vote, analysts say, while a loss could stunt his career and leave the opposition in further disarray.

For Erdogan, regaining Istanbul and Ankara would bolster his pursuit of a new constitution that could potentially extend his rule beyond 2028, which marks the end of his current term, analysts say.

Under the existing constitution, the presidency is limited to two terms. Erdogan secured a third term last year thanks to a legal loophole resulting from the transition to a presidential system in 2018, as his initial term was served under the previous system.

"The electoral test is also significant for Erdogan's pursuit of a new constitution (or constitutional amendments) to side-step presidential term limits and remove the remaining elements of judicial independence," said Wolfango Piccoli, co-President of Teneo.

Who are the candidates?

MURAT KURUM, AKP, ISTANBUL:

Kurum, 47, was environment and urbanization minister from July 2018 until last June, leaving the post after the general elections in 2023. He was then elected as a member of parliament for Istanbul.

Born in Ankara, Kurum served at the state mass housing agency TOKI from 2005 to 2009 and later as the general manager of Emlak Konut, a government-run real estate investment trust.

EKREM IMAMOGLU, CHP, ISTANBUL:

Imamoglu, 52, originally from the Black Sea city of Trabzon, was a district mayor in the city before becoming Istanbul mayor.

He won the 2019 election in Istanbul with the backing of an alliance of the CHP, the nationalist IYI Party, and the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (DEM), which is now called DEM. This year IYI and DEM are running their own candidates. Many of Türkiye's Kurds are set to put aside party loyalty and back Imamoglu on Sunday, according to pollsters.

CHP'S MANSUR YAVAS, AKP'S TURGUT ALTINOK:

Pollsters say Ankara's incumbent Mayor Mansur Yavas, a former district mayor in Ankara, is comfortably ahead of AKP challenger Turgut Altinok, another former district mayor.

OTHER PROVINCES:

Turks will also vote in the other 79 provinces of the country, casting four votes in total: one for the mayor of their province, one for their district mayor, one for the district council and another for the local administrator of their neighborhood.

Other competitive cities include CHP-run Antalya, Bursa, and Adana.

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.