Turkey recap recently visited three provinces in central Turkey to report on post-election developments in Anatolia. This article is the first in a series of three:
ŞANLIURFA — Since the local elections in March, two posters have been hanging next to the entrance of the Şanlıurfa metropolitan municipality building.
One poster is red with white letters reading: “No cronyism, corruption, bribes or extravagant spending!” The other one displays a phone number along with the text: “WhatsApp-hotline for waste and corruption.”
Fighting poor governance was the central campaign message of new mayor Mehmet Kasım Gülpınar, who was elected with 38 percent of the votes in Şanlıurfa.
He was one of two provincial mayors elected from the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi, YRP) in March. Nationwide, the conservative YRP took 6.2 percent of votes, ranking third after the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
YRP’s electoral success is the confluence of many developments in Turkey, but at its core, the party rose to prominence out of deepening economic hardship among citizens and their growing distaste for what they view as corruption and wasteful spending by the AKP.
The view from Gülpınar’s office
In his office on the seventh floor of the municipal building, Gülpınar said he wasn’t surprised about the election results in an interview with Turkey recap.
“The request was made by the people, actually, I did not want to be a mayor,” he said. “But we are politicians, we need to do whatever the people say,” he added.
Gülpınar has a long career in politics, and served four terms as an MP for the AKP. He then continued as chief advisor to Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan before leaving the AKP in January, when the party did not support Gülpınar’s candidacy for mayor in Urfa. He switched to the YRP, a “suitable party” for him, Gülpınar said.
Asked whether the election victory should be credited to his name brand or YRP, Gülpınar smiled and said it would not be appropriate for him to answer. “But this can be a hint,” he added. “The people said Kasım Gülpınar, they wanted that, but did not specify a party.”
Gülpınar’s success was helped by a large segment of AKP voters who did not support their party during the local elections. According to MetroPoll research, nationwide, 1 million voters went from the AKP to the YRP. CHP also gained 1.3 million AKP voters.
Conservative fragmentation
Şebnem Gümüşçü, an associate professor of political science at Middlebury College, said that while YRP’s 6.2 percent vote share was still far below the 37.8 and 35.5 percent of CHP and AKP, respectably, it remains a significant achievement for a young party in their first electoral competition contest without the AKP alliance, as in 2023.
She saw the rise of the YRP as a sign of possible divisions on the right of Turkey’s political spectrum, which she said is prone to swings, like a pendulum, between fragmentation and unity.
“It is possible to argue at this particular juncture that the New Welfare Party and the six percent of votes that they captured is indicating another trend towards fragmentation … within the block that AKP represented for a long while,” she told Turkey recap.
During the 2024 campaign, YRP head Fatih Erbakan mainly appealed to the AKP voters. He criticized the ruling party heavily, most often for the nation’s economic problems, interest rate policies, continued trade with Israel and corruption.
The messaging resonated with Turkey’s conservative voter base, which until the March elections, Erdoğan had largely consolidated under the AKP after splintering from the original Welfare Party (RP).
For context, RP was headed by Fatih Erbakan’s late father, Necmettin Erbakan, whose ideology is still influential in the Islamist movement.
‘Two mentalities’
Today, with the larger public, YRP is known for its highly conservative views on women's rights, fiercely anti-LGBT+ stance and conspiratory vaccine skepticism. Yet while campaigning in Şanlıurfa, mayor Gülpınar focused on the government’s use of public funds.
"This election is between us and an AK Party that uses all the power of the government, has poured out on the streets everything it has, of which a minister comes every day and spends all resources recklessly,” he said during a rally. “In other words, [this election is between] two mentalities.”
Since taking the mayorship, Gülpınar’s criticism of the AKP has been muted.
When asked why he did not leave the party earlier if there had been so many problems, Gülpınar said his duty as an MP was not to correct mayoral policies, saying there were also allegations of nepotism in opposition municipalities.
He also claimed he would maintain similar policies and correct previous mistakes if he had remained with the AKP. Still, Gülpınar said “the AK Party lost touch with the people and that has a bit of an effect”, adding voters had problems with their top-down rule.
In some of his first messages after the election, Gülpınar again stressed the importance of local governance without corruption and overspending. When speaking of concrete plans, he highlighted work against drug use and stray dogs.
“Citizens are observing this: a waste of money and corruption. People do not want that to happen with their resources,” Gülpınar said, adding: “People already have troubles with making a living. They say: ‘These [politicians] are being paid from my resources. Why should I support their cars? Why should I pay for their petrol from my pocket?”
“The people of Urfa sent a message,” Gülpınar said, summarizing the election outcome.
Voter Ahmed Akdeniz echoed that message: “I voted for the AKP since the party was founded, but enough is enough. They destroyed us,” he said, complaining about his financial problems.
“Thank god he became our mayor,” Akdeniz continued, referring to Gülpınar as ‘a man of the people’ without connecting him to the AKP, which he represented until a few months ago.
Akdeniz then mentioned Gülpınar’s father, who also was an MP for the AKP, underlining the importance of maintaining family and tribal ties in the conservative province. Gülpınar’s grandfather was an influential sheikh in the region.
Although support for the YRP may have influenced Erdoğan’s decisions to cut trade with Israel after the elections, none of the voters or politicians interviewed by Turkey recap mentioned Israel policy as a main reason for AKP defections.
Institutional problems
Analyst Selim Koru said the AKP’s ability to solve problems has decreased as the party confronts institutional fatigue, corruption, bureaucratization and public disillusionment.
“The idea in the 2000s was to move to the center, then pull it all to the Islamist right. A quarter century on, I think the endeavor has been a success, but the AK Party is pretty tired,” Koru said.
“Their ability to pull has dissipated. That’s where Yeniden Refah comes in. It’s a fresh horse to pull the center of politics further to the Islamist right,” Koru told Turkey recap.
That pull is not without controversy, as YRP’s Islamist social and societal policy programs have sparked anger with progressives as well as LGBT+ and women’s organizations. Yet, in Şanlıurfa, a broad spectrum of voters supported Gülpınar.
Lawyer Şirin Cemile Kızılkaya is one of them, she explained while sitting in her office, where a table displayed copies of the yearly report of the Şanlıurfa Bar Association’s Women’s Rights Center, of which she is a part.
The report’s cover shows a picture with the slogan: “Our body, our lives, our decisions, it’s ours! Let your family be yours!”
As a women’s rights lawyer, Kızılkaya said she was not comfortable about voting for YRP. “But it was a strategic vote. Something needs to change. If you are not part of the AKP or without a reference, you can’t find any job with the municipality. Everyone was done with that,” she told Turkey recap.
A little over a month since the election, the party had yet to make significant changes in Urfa. Still, Kızılkaya did not expect conditions to get much better either. She said her colleagues were already facing pressure during their women’s rights activities.
“It will be a continuation of the same mentality,” she said.
Local dynamics
Known for its cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity, Şanlıurfa is also home to a large group of Kurdish voters. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) ended third in the municipality race, with 21.15 percent of the votes. It won seven districts, up from one in 2019.
Lawyer and DEM-voter Velat Izol pointed out that the pro-Kurdish party has a strong representation in the municipal council. Yet compared with the general election in 2023, the party lost some 50,000 votes province-wide. Izol speculated most of those voters had backed Gülpınar.
“Despite all this pressure and the fact that its leaders, politicians and members of parliament have been in prison for years, [DEM’s election performance] is still a success,” Izol told Turkey recap.
While he would have preferred to see his own party take the metropolitan municipality, he appreciated that Gülpınar did not use polarizing language.
“There were no bad words against the AKP, nor against DEM Party … He said he would only be the mayor and govern Urfa,” Izol said.
This was part of his success, Izol continued: “He goes to places and speaks Arabic, speaks Kurdish, speaks Turkish. He sees a tourist in the bazaar and speaks English. He didn’t turn to [polarization politics] and I expect he will continue like that. Of course that is actually a normal thing, but because we didn’t see [it before], it feels good for us.”
No monoliths
Back in Gülpınar’s office, when the new mayor was asked which parties he might cooperate with in the municipal council, he said that local governance would be managed in a democratic way.
“Our aim and concern here is to provide a good municipal service to the public,” Gülpınar responded. “As I said, like DEM voters, people from all different opinions voted for me.”
Such rhetoric and expectations indicate local dynamics are key in many provinces, and that YRP candidates and voters are not a monolith.
“Some of the [YRP leaders] are much more concerned with this emphasis on morality and spiritual development, Islamization, etc. Others are much more concerned with the corruption part, inflation part and the justice deficiency,” Şebnem Gümüşçü, the academic, said.
She added there are more radical voices in the party that are against gender equality, women’s rights and issues like alimony or child custody.
“It is a coalition of different people coming together for different reasons, but it seems like the Islamic core is bringing them together,” Gümüşçü said, summarizing the YRP platform.
With all these dynamics, it will be difficult to say where YRP voters might turn in future general elections. Former AKP voters, including Urfa mayor Gülpınar, still showed respect or support for Erdoğan.
“If Erdoğan takes this message from the people [and] he tries to fix the economy, tries to improve the living standards of masses … then it is very possible that he actually takes some of those votes that he lost to Yeniden Refah back,” Gümüşçü said.
Yet, that is a big question mark, she added:
“Fixing that corruption may be even harder for the party than fixing the economic difficulties. I don't really think there is a way out for AKP anymore. … He lost all those cadres that were eager to continue building connections with the people to other parties.”
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