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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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Features

Bedouin Face Eviction as Israeli Settlement Spreads Near Jerusalem

A Palestinian Bedouin walks up a hill, as the communities of Jabal Al-Baba faces displacement due to plans to build a new Israeli settlement near the E1 road, in Jabal Al-Baba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 17, 2025. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
A Palestinian Bedouin walks up a hill, as the communities of Jabal Al-Baba faces displacement due to plans to build a new Israeli settlement near the E1 road, in Jabal Al-Baba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 17, 2025. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
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Bedouin Face Eviction as Israeli Settlement Spreads Near Jerusalem

A Palestinian Bedouin walks up a hill, as the communities of Jabal Al-Baba faces displacement due to plans to build a new Israeli settlement near the E1 road, in Jabal Al-Baba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 17, 2025. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
A Palestinian Bedouin walks up a hill, as the communities of Jabal Al-Baba faces displacement due to plans to build a new Israeli settlement near the E1 road, in Jabal Al-Baba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 17, 2025. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

The land available to Atallah al-Jahalin’s Bedouin community for grazing livestock near Jerusalem has steadily shrunk, as expanding Jewish settlements on Israeli-occupied territory encircle the city and push deeper into the West Bank.

Now, the group of some 80 families faces eviction from the last patches of valley and scrubland they have called home for decades.

Their predicament is tied to an Israeli settlement project that would slice through the West Bank, sever its connection to East Jerusalem, and -- according to Israeli officials -- "bury" any remaining hope of a future Palestinian state.

As more Western powers move to recognise a Palestinian state amid frustration over the war in Gaza, Palestinians around Jerusalem say they are watching their land vanish under the advance of Israeli cranes and bulldozers. Settlements now form an almost unbroken ring around the city, Reuters reported.

“Where else could I go? There is nothing,” said Jahalin, seated beneath a towering cedar tree near Maale Adumim, a settlement that has already grown into a Jewish suburb of Jerusalem on Israeli-occupied Palestinian land.

The so-called E1 project, recently greenlit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, will fill the last major gap in the settlement belt -- an area that, until now, had remained untouched by construction.

"This actually cuts the possibility of a viable Palestinian state," said Hagit Ofran, of Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group. "The territorial continuity from North to South is going to be totally cut."

Israel previously froze construction plans at Maale Adumim in 2012 and again in 2020, following objections from the US, European allies and other powers who viewed the project as a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

But in August, Netanyahu and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that work would begin. Smotrich declared the move would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.

"Whoever in the world is trying to recognize a Palestinian state today will receive our answer on the ground," Smotrich said. "Not with documents nor with decisions or statements, but with facts. Facts of houses, facts of neighborhoods."

SETTLEMENT GROWTH DEFIES DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

The move was condemned by Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Union and Japan as a breach of international law.

Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeinah condemned the announcement, calling it a violation of international law.

The offices of Netanyahu and Smotrich did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Reflecting growing criticism of the Gaza war -- which has devastated much of the enclave on Israel’s southern border -- Australia, Britain, Canada and Portugal recognized a Palestinian state on Sunday, joining about 140 other countries that have already done so.

But the timing highlights a stark contrast between diplomatic gestures and the reality on the ground, where Israeli settlements continue to expand rapidly across the occupied West Bank.

Most world powers consider all the settlements illegal under international law, although Israel says it has historical and biblical ties to the area that it calls Judea and Samaria.

A UN report says Israel has significantly expanded settlements in the West Bank in breach of international law.

Today, about 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Last month, Jahalin's community was served demolition orders for their homes and told they had 60 days to tear them down themselves. Israeli security forces accompanied by dogs have repeatedly raided their homes at night, acts the community views as intimidation.

"When a child wakes up and sees a dog in his face, he gets frightened, it's a disaster," said Mohammed al-Jahalin, Atallah's brother.

Mohammed al-Jahalin said they used to challenge the demolition notices in court, but since the Gaza war, "if you reach out to the court it will give you an immediate evacuation order."

Part of the E1 project includes the so-called "Fabric of Life Road," which would create separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians, cutting off Palestinian access to large swathes of the West Bank. The road would also sever a vital link between Bedouin communities -- like the 22 families living in Jabal Al-Baba -- and the nearby Palestinian village of al-Eizariya.

BEDOUIN FEAR A NEW CYCLE OF DISPOSSESSION

As children, the Jahalin brothers walked down the stony hill to attend school in the bustling town below, and their grandchildren follow the same path today.

"We are dependent on al-Eizariya for education as the children go to school there, for health, for everything, our economic situation is also tied to al-Eizariya," said Atallah.

A few hills over across a highway, the settlement of Maale Adumim is poised to expand under the E1 plan.

"I do feel for the Palestinians," said Shelly Brinne, a settler living in Maale Adumim, citing their struggles with checkpoints and limited work opportunities. "But unfortunately as an Israeli citizen I feel like I have to worry about my security first."

A spokesperson for the Maale Adumim settlement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Bedouin community came to Jabal Al-Baba after what Palestinians call the "Nakba" or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed in the war at the birth of the state of Israel.

"Our forefathers lived the Nakba, and today, we go through all the struggle, which we wish our children do not have to go through," said Atallah, who is the leader of the community.

In the evening one of the men made coffee over an open flame while the rest of the community lounged on cushions and traded jokes as the sun dipped behind the hills.

Across the highway, the lights of Maale Adumim’s white high-rises glittered.

“There is no place for us to go," said Mohammed, sipping his coffee. "To leave the land that we were born in, and so were our fathers and forefathers, if we have to leave it, it would be like dying."

Features

What to Know About Iran’s Nuclear Program as UN ‘Snapback’ Sanctions Deadline Draws Closer 

This shows Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran, on April, 9, 2007. (AP)
This shows Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran, on April, 9, 2007. (AP)
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What to Know About Iran’s Nuclear Program as UN ‘Snapback’ Sanctions Deadline Draws Closer 

This shows Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran, on April, 9, 2007. (AP)
This shows Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran, on April, 9, 2007. (AP)

A 30-day window to stop the reimposition of United Nations sanctions on Iran is closing, likely meaning Tehran will face new pressure on its ailing economy as tensions remain high in the wider Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

As the UN General Assembly meets this week in New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have a last chance to try to halt the sanctions. The clock started when France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Aug. 28 declared Iran wasn't complying with its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Tehran has argued without success that the deal was voided by the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018 under President Donald Trump's first administration. Since then, Iran has severely restricted required inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, particularly after the 12-day war Israel launched on Iran in June. That war saw both the US and Israel bomb key Iranian nuclear sites.

Here's what to know about Iran's nuclear sites, “snapback” sanctions and other issues raising tensions between Iran and the West.

What is ‘snapback’ and how does it work?

The “snapback” process, as it is called by the diplomats who negotiated it into Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, was designed to be veto-proof at the UN Security Council and could take effect 30 days after parties to the deal told the Security Council that Iran was not complying. It would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran, and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures.

The power to impose “snapback” expires Oct. 18, which likely prompted the European countries to use it before they lost the measure. After that, any sanctions effort would face a veto from UN Security Council members China and Russia, nations that have provided support to Iran in the past. China has remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, something that could be affected if “snapback” happens, while Russia has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.

Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry the West?

Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near-weapons-grade levels, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The IAEA put Iran's stockpile just before the war at 9,874.9 kilograms (21,770.4 pounds), with 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%. That would allow Iran to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so.

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

US struck three major Iranian nuclear sites during Israel war

Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, located some 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, is the country’s main enrichment site and had already been targeted by Israeli airstrikes when the US attacked it in June. Uranium had been enriched to up to 60% purity at the site — a short step away from weapons grade — before Israel destroyed the aboveground part of the facility, according to the IAEA.

Another part of the facility on Iran’s Central Plateau is underground to defend against airstrikes. It operates multiple “cascades,” groups of centrifuges that work together to more quickly enrich uranium. The IAEA has said it believes that most if not all of these centrifuges were destroyed by an Israeli strike that cut off power to the site. The US also dropped so-called bunker-busting bombs on the site, likely heavily damaging it.

Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, located some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran, also came under US bombardment with bunker-busting bombs. The US struck the Isfahan Nuclear Technology as well with smaller munitions.

Israel separately targeted other sites associated with the program, including the Arak heavy water reactor.

Why have relations been so bad between Iran and the US?

Iran was once one of the US’s top allies in the region under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then came the revolution led by Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed. During Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the US backed Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the US launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later it shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the American military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the US have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, and relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Middle East that persist today, fanned by the Israel-Hamas war and Israel's wider strikes across the region.

Features

Macron Takes Risk with Palestinian Statehood Recognition

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands after his visit to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral ahead of Local Heritage Days to celebrate the reopening of the cathedral's Towers to visitors in Paris, France, 19 September 2025. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands after his visit to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral ahead of Local Heritage Days to celebrate the reopening of the cathedral's Towers to visitors in Paris, France, 19 September 2025. (Reuters)
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Macron Takes Risk with Palestinian Statehood Recognition

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands after his visit to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral ahead of Local Heritage Days to celebrate the reopening of the cathedral's Towers to visitors in Paris, France, 19 September 2025. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands after his visit to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral ahead of Local Heritage Days to celebrate the reopening of the cathedral's Towers to visitors in Paris, France, 19 September 2025. (Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron scored a major diplomatic coup by declaring his intention to recognize a Palestinian state but the move risks being followed by bitter retaliation from Israel while not providing concrete benefits to the Palestinians, analysts and sources say.

Macron sent a shockwave through the international community with his pledge over the summer. His announcement in a speech in New York at a conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Monday is now to be matched by recognition by nine other states including Australia, Belgium, Canada and the UK, according to the Elysee.

The recognition marks the growing international frustration with Israel over its assault and aid blockades on the Gaza Strip first launched in response to the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian group Hamas.

The implications are historic -- France and the UK will be the first permanent UN Security Council members to recognize a Palestinian state and, along with Canada, the first G7 members to do so.

"This recognition is not the end of our diplomatic efforts. It is not a symbolic recognition. It is part of a broader and very concrete action," said French foreign ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux, pointing to the Saudi-French roadmap that is to accompany the recognition.

Defending the move on Israeli television this week, Macron said it was the "best way to isolate Hamas".

Diplomats from both sides, asking not to be named, are expecting reprisals from Israel in the wake of the move although the retaliation is not expected to extend to Israel cutting diplomatic relations with France.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could shut down France's consulate in Jerusalem which is intensively used by Palestinians or annex part of the West Bank where Israel has expanded settlements in defiance of international outrage, they said.

"There is going to be a lot of noise," said one diplomat, asking not to be named.

"The Israelis are prepared for anything, and the French response is likely to be quite limited," said Agnes Levallois, deputy president of the Paris-based Institute for Research and Study of the Mediterranean and Middle East.

"Ultimately, it is the Palestinians who have the most to lose in this crisis," she said, adding the move needed to be followed by sanctions against Israel to have any impact.

"The annexation of the West Bank is a clear red line," warned a French presidential official, asking not to be named. "It is obviously the worst possible violation of UN resolutions."

The United States also vehemently opposes the move and its ambassador to Paris, Charles Kushner, has made his feelings clear in a series of posts on X denouncing "unmet French conditions" for the recognition.

"From the beginning, we have made it clear that recognition of a Palestinian state by France, without any conditions, would complicate the situation on the ground rather than advance peace," Joshua Zarka, Israel's ambassador to France, told AFP.

Zarka said France should have not taken the step without demanding that all the Israeli hostages held by Hamas were released first.

But the Palestinian representative in France, Hala Abou Hassira, said France needed to go further, urging "concrete sanctions, such as an arms embargo on Israel, a severance of relations with Israel which includes the total termination of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel."

After months of wavering on the issue, Macron made the decision on the plane travelling from the Egyptian border point of El-Arish in April where he met wounded Palestinians and could witness the suffering caused by the blockade, people close to him said.

Politically embattled at home -- Macron just appointed his seventh prime minister -- and failing despite intense efforts to end Russia's war on Ukraine, the recognition gives the president a chance to seal a concrete step in his legacy.

He sees this recognition "as a diplomatic lever to put pressure on Netanyahu," said a person close to him, asking not to be named.

For former ambassador Michel Duclos, resident fellow at the Montaigne Institute, "this could become a success for France," in line with the French "no" under late president Jacques Chirac to oppose the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.