At the first rays of the sun, there is no need to visit. On the bayside lawns of the western Turkish port city of Izmir, thousands of townspeople meet to sip beer and tea. The famous promenade, called the “Cordon”, and its lively taverns are proudly presented as symbols of the local lifestyle.
Three weeks before the municipal elections on March 31, this fun space is an essential stopover for candidates campaigning in the country’s third-largest city. Marked by red bibs, members of the team of CHP (Republican People’s Party, Kemalist, main opposition party), Nilufar Sinarli Mutlu, candidate for town hall in the central district of Konak, distribute leaflets as shouts are heard.
“The CHP did not understand anything! What do you have to put a candidate like Samil Tuge (CHP Candidate for Izmir Greater Municipality) ? “, says a fifty-year-old blonde. “I voted for him in Karsiaka (upscale district of Izmir), where he did absolutely nothing”She continues angrily.
Arms hanging down, one of the young men on the team tried, unconvincingly, to put forward some argument. “Unfortunately, we regularly encounter this kind of backlash”, he admits in a low voice. Traffic, coastal flooding, the slow progress of metro works are regularly cited by Izmir residents, but the causes of anger go beyond local issues. After the opposition’s crushing defeat in the May 2023 presidential and legislative elections, the main opposition force is struggling to rally its troops.
“How are you going to explain that you are a democrat when you don’t apply your principles to your own party”, Jokes Arzu (those cited by their first names requested anonymity), a lawyer in his forties, on the terrace of the Yakin café-bookstore, a few hundred meters from Le Cordon. “Many social democratic voters around me who present themselves as unwavering supporters of the CHP say they will not vote on March 31.” she assures.
Canceled at the last minute
In Izmir, the choice of the CHP’s new president, Ozgur Özel, fell on a name from his inner circle, On November 5, 2023, Kemal Kilikdaroglu defeated the rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the detriment of Cemil Tuge, the incumbent mayor, Tunc Sawyer, who had supported him during the party’s internal elections. The party leadership may have cited the results of opinion polls to justify the decision, but failed to convince.
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