It is much too early to anoint Ekrem Imamoglu, now effectively the twice-elected mayor of Istanbul, as the New Erdogan—but the willingness of so many, Turks and Turkey-watchers alike, to do so should worry the Old Erdogan. For the first time in the best part of two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a political challenger of proven vote-gathering ability, and only himself to blame for providing the proof.
Had the president not insisted on a do-over of the Istanbul mayoral election, Imamoglu would have been someone who had squeaked into office by 14,000 votes, facing opposition from Erdogan’s powerful AK Party and also other opposition groups. Instead, Imamoglu can boast of a landslide, with a margin in excess of 800,000 votes, and the backing of an anti-AKP alliance.
This is a body-blow to Erdogan that he has taken with bad grace, warning the new mayor that he could be tried for having allegedly insulted a provincial governor; if jailed, Imamoglu would lose his office.
Erdogan has lost more than face: Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul is also the country’s economic engine, accounting for a third of gross domestic product, a fifth of the population and a quarter of public spending. In the mid- to late-1990s, Erdogan himself was able to use the Istanbul mayoralty—the country’s most important political constituency—as a springboard to national leadership.
The parallels between the two men at this stage in their careers invite consideration. In 1994, Erdogan was an articulate, charismatic 40-year old, attractive to both religious conservatives and a new generation of Turks keen for more economic opportunity to go with their democratic freedoms. Imamoglu is an articulate, charismatic 49-year-old, appealing to a new generation grown tired of economic stagnation and alarmed by the erosion of their democratic freedoms. He has also demonstrated an ideological flexibility that could widen this base beyond secular urbanites and into the religious heartland.
But the parallels run no farther. Erdogan’s leap from the mayoralty to national leadership was possible because of the strength and discipline of the AK Party; Imamoglu can claim neither of those virtues for his CHP, which is a pale shadow of the party founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Perhaps more important, Erdogan the mayor did not have to reckon with a national leader of the caliber of Erdogan the president. Imamoglu can count on being hounded at every turn by a national leader who has amassed executive powers that give him the ability to undermine the mayor’s economic agenda.
What Imamoglu does have are some very precious political commodities: credibility, legitimacy and momentum. He now has international name-recognition that only the mayors of cities such as New York and London can claim.
If he wields these advantages with skill, the mayor could conceivably build a national constituency to take on the president.
Imamoglu will also benefit if Erdogan keeps making political blunders. Carrying through on the threat of legal action against the just-elected mayor would be one. In 1998, Erdogan himself was removed from the mayoralty and jailed for having declaimed some Islamic poetry in a public speech—this was deemed as inciting religious hatred. The persecution of a popular mayor had the effect of making him a more prominent national figure.
If Erdogan doesn’t learn from his own past, he will likely face a serious challenge from Imamoglu in the not-too-distant future.
Bloomberg View
