Turkey's Elections: What Do They Mean for Turkey and Erdoğan? by Burak Bekdil  •  April 5, 2019 at 5:00 am         The election results in Istanbul, now disputed by the AKP, put the opposition candidate into the lead by a margin of 23,000 votes in a city with 10.5 million voters. "Though Turkey's government and many commentators are blaming the Trump administration and foreign speculators for the country's economic downturn, the reality is that it was already 'baked into the cake' many years ago due to the credit bubble that formed." — Jesse Colombo, Forbes. Simple religious Islamist conservative and ultra-nationalist populism are still keeping Erdoğan in power, but there are signs that, if the economy keeps getting worse, those forces may not be able to save him. There are signs that this is taking place. The defeat of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP party in the March 31 municipal elections, coupled with a new wave of economic and financial crises, could force Erdoğan into early presidential and parliamentary elections. (Photo by Amilcar Orfali/Getty Images) On March 31, the Turks went to the ballot box to elect mayors for their cities. Ostensibly the election results marked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's 15th consecutive election victory since his (Islamist) Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002. The AKP won the biggest number of votes (44%) nationwide. Its ultra-nationalist ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) won 7% of the vote. That was good news for Erdoğan. In reality, it was good but incomplete news for Turkey's Islamist strongman. "Who loses Istanbul [in elections] loses Turkey," Erdoğan roared in a 2018 speech, underlying the importance of big Turkish cities in municipal elections. Continue Reading Article