Opposition triumph in Turkey’s local elections: democratic recovery or autocratic hiccup?
In the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, Turkish opposition parties suffered catastrophic defeat. Several factors contributed to their surprise victory in the recent local elections. In the newest article for The Loop our researcher Pelin Ayan Musil and Sultan Tepe, associate Professor at University of Illinois, argue that shifting from alliance to party-centered competition gave opposition parties a striking advantage.
„In this year’s local elections, Erdoğan’s party competed without its nationalist and Islamist partners. It did not form a coalition with the hidden victor of the elections, the minor Islamist YRP. This, it turned out, could have been a substantial mistake.”
The full-text article is available under the link below.