The Turkish municipal elections took place on March 31, and resulted in a resounding defeat for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, internally, regionally and internationally. They carried important connotations and messages marking the end of the Erdogan era and a prelude to the end of this regime. One of the first connotations is that the coming Turkey is a secular one, and that Erdogan is not capable of tampering with the constitution which will restore it to its previous state and fix everything that the AKP tampered with.
One of the most important connotations is the fall of political Islam in Turkey, which Erdogan used to wear as a mask and move through it between Turkish cities and provinces with his resonant speeches and false promises. One of the important messages of the municipal elections in Turkey is Erdogan’s failure and inability to reform the Turkish economic situation, which has greatly worsened. The inflation rate has reached more than 70%, the value of the Turkish lira has deteriorated against the dollar, and Erdogan is no longer able to address the high prices and living conditions of the population and the worsening unemployment crisis that has affected most social strata, not to mention the housing crisis that has become exacerbated, especially after the strong earthquakes that struck Turkey such as Kahramanmaraş earthquakes and others where more than half of those affected became homeless and on the side of the road.
Erdogan lost the municipalities of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other large cities to the opposition, especially the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its new leader Ozil. The DEM party also won more than 70 municipalities in northern Kurdistan (southeast Turkey), despite the AKP’s attempt to follow previous methods of subterfuge and fraud through its cronies and bringing in soldiers from the army to vote. After the failure of these attempts, they resorted to force by imposing their candidate in the city of Van and elsewhere, but the response was large and popular. Demonstrations and protests took place in many Kurdish cities in Van, the city of Sirnakh, and the suburbs of major cities. Erdogan has demonstrated his inability before the West and the U.S. to play the desired regional role through his military operations in South Kurdistan (Kurdistan Region of Iraq), his harmony with the Iranian authorities and his occupation of northern Syria, his harmony sometimes with the Syrian regime and sometimes with the mullahs of Iran, and his support for Hamas and ISIS, and with Russia and Astana instead of complying with the U.N. Resolution 2254.
Erdogan failed to cause an internal rift, and he could have maintained the internal balance and surprised the Kurds without establishing public alliances such as easing the pressure on Imrali Prison, allowing the family of Leader Abdullah Ocalan to visit him, placing international press and health oversight on Imrali Prison in preparation for releasing him from captivity, and entering into negotiations to resolve the Kurdish issue.
At that time, it could be said that Erdogan had brought about development in internal issues and contributed to resolving the Kurdish issue in Bakur Kurdistan (southeast Turkey). But Erdogan remained a prisoner of his hatred for democracy, peace, equality, stability, and development because he is repeating himself and there is nothing new with him.
