You Can Go Your Self-Own Way

Issue #191

In some cities, cars parked in the wrong place get ticketed or towed.

In İstanbul this week, those cars got swallowed by a street market because the owners couldn’t be reached, and then food vendors couldn’t set up their stalls, and a cascading series of events brought this daily life snippet to your inbox today.

In this week’s issue:

• Turkey’s opposition bloc splits further

• Erdoğan rejects US pressure on Hamas

• No progress on NATO impasse

• Erdoğan goes to Athens

• Credit rating rises, minimum wage talks loading

• How the lynch stole Christmas

And don’t miss Berkay Mandıracı’s op-ed on today’s Turkey-Greek summit and Diego Cupolo’s overview on how the Israel-Gaza war has impacted Ankara’s FP.

Özel and Akşener during their meeting last week. © Source

History repeats itself too often if you live in Turkey. 

A little more than six months after the May elections, the country is preparing to head to polls again in March, and once again the opposition is all over the place, and everyone is curious about their candidates. 

After several key meetings, İYİ Party and HEDEP announced separately Monday they would field their own candidates for the 2024 local elections. 

İYİ's general executive board declined CHP's collaboration offer with a 35-14 vote. In addition, party leader Meral Akşener defined alliance politics as a "mandate and protectorate trap." 

In response to the thumbs down vote, one of the İYİ Party's founding members and İstanbul MP Ayşe Sibel Yanıkömeroğlu announced her resignation. 

"I have been disturbed by recent developments," Yanıkömeroğlu told Yetkin Report. "The rejection of CHP's cooperation proposal was the last straw."

HEDEP's central executive committee also advised the party council to run its own candidates for all 81 provinces. When asked if the decision applied to metropolitan cities as well, the party's spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan said that while it was not yet a final verdict, they were preparing to enter the race with their own candidates in every city.

In the last local elections, CHP won Ankara and İstanbul with the help of both parties. However, their latest decisions don’t seem to intimidate the main opposition party. "Once a friend, always a friend," said CHP head Özgür Özel regarding İYİ Party before saying he respects their verdict. 

Still, several CHP officials told Turkey recap that nothing is final in Turkish politics. The sources believed that due to their long-time cooperation with Akşener, İYİ Party voters would continue supporting the CHP even if their party chose another path. They added their plan was to maintain this camaraderie by nominating candidates in critical provinces that would appeal to İYİ voters. 

"They love Ekrem İmamoğlu," one CHP official said, withholding their name. "Meral 'Hanım' and İYİ Party can say whatever they want, but most of their voters support him [İmamoğlu] and Mansur Yavaş."

On the other hand, HEDEP's position is more complicated. According to Rawest Research's October data on Kurdish voters in İstanbul, 54 percent think İmamoğlu should be a candidate again. A third of them said they'd support İmamoğlu even if their party ran another candidate, while a quarter said an alternative candidate might change their vote. 

"It looks like we'll have a HEDEP candidate in İstanbul, but the candidate and the scale of the party's campaigning efforts will be decided by their negotiations with AKP," researcher Reha Ruhavioğlu told Turkey recap. 

"In my opinion, if an agreement is reached with AKP, HEDEP will nominate a strong candidate [in İstanbul] and put more effort into campaigning," said Ruhavioğlu, who has been working on the Kurdish issue and politics for years. 

"But, in contrast, with an unknown candidate and weak campaign, HEDEP voters will turn more towards İmamoğlu," he added.

HEDEP executives told BBC Türkçe they were still open to collaboration with parties from both blocs. Their conditions included eliminating the state-appointed trustee system in eastern provinces, releasing political prisoners, and ending the isolation of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. 

"A non-government candidate can't provide those demands," Ruhavioğlu said. "HEDEP can only solve them with 'iktidar'. It looks like their priority is to come to a conclusion with the AKP first. If it doesn't work, they'll probably turn their face to the opposition."

– Gonca Tokyol