Post-election challenges ahead: Will Erdoğan opt AKP out?

Following the March 31 local election defeat, President Tayyip Erdoğan made two strategic political decisions. The first was to continue with the Medium-Term Program under the responsibility of Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, hoping to overcome the economic crisis. The second was to spread out the internal review process of the election defeat within the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over time.

Spreading this review process over time will not lessen the pains of reckoning, and it will likely increase them. However, if Erdoğan can eventually make the difficult decision to administer a similar bitter pill to his party, which has kept him in power for over twenty years, as he has to the public in the economic sphere, the AKP could reverse its signs of chronic vote loss. Before making this tough decision, he needs to navigate three scenarios and a dilemma ahead.

Where was AKP a year ago?

Exactly one year ago, in the parliamentary elections on May 14, 2023, the AKP received 35.3 percent of the vote. The CHP received 25.4 percent. In the March 31 local elections, although the AKP maintained its vote share of 35.5 percent in provincial council votes, which reflect the national situation, the CHP caught up and surpassed it with 37.7 percent.

Yes, local and general elections are not the same.

Yes, MetroPoll Research Company Director Özer Sencar’s observation based on the April and May survey results that voters now trust the CHP in local administrations but are not yet sure about entrusting it with the national administration also seems correct. However, according to these results, while the CHP has reached its highest potential vote share during Erdoğan’s tenure, the AKP appears to have regressed to its lowest level since its founding.

At this point, it’s also worth mentioning the findings of another veteran researcher, Bekir Ağırdır, who managed KONDA surveys for years.

“March 31 was a delayed May 14”

In his report titled “Is the Local Election Success the Beginning of Change in the CHP?” written for the conservative-leaning think tank Ankara Institute, Ağırdır stated, “The political landscape and the famous colored map we saw on the evening of March 31, 2024, were actually expected to form on the evening of May 14 general elections.” He continued:

“There were plenty of signs of the public’s reaction to the problems of daily life, centralization, arbitrariness, injustice, and lawlessness. Another picture emerged when Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener duo managed to achieve the miracle and lose. Therefore, the picture we encountered [on March 31] was essentially a delayed and postponed one.”

In fact, Kılıçdaroğlu’s alliance policy aimed at “growing the opposition” seemed to be successful until he put his own candidacy forward at the last minute. Both Sencar and Ağırdır believe that Ekrem İmamoğlu or Mansur Yavaş would have won against Erdoğan on May 28, 2023.

Of course, it is also necessary to consider the ten months between the May 14-28 elections and March 31, during which the economic crisis worsened and voters became more convinced that Erdoğan’s economic policies could not solve the crisis.

What does the balance sheet say about AKP?

In the same report, Ağırdır compared the vote shares and numbers parties received for municipal councils and mayoralties in 2024. For instance, while the AKP received 16.4 million votes for mayoralties, it received 14.8 million for municipal councils, where party preference is more evident. The discrepancy is even greater for the CHP. While the CHP collected 17.4 million votes for mayoralties, it received 15.8 million for municipal councils. In rounded figures, the AKP lost 1.5 million votes and 2.4 percent, and the CHP lost 1.6 million votes and 2.6 percent.

Conversely, Ağırdır’s comparison of local council votes in 2024 with general council votes in 2023 reveals a different picture. While the AKP’s 18.5 million votes fell to 14.8 million, resulting in a 6.4% loss, the CHP’s 13.4 million votes increased to 15.8 million, with a gain of 3.7 percent.

To simplify:

• If Özel and the new CHP administration continue to renew and maintain their current course, they may approach taking power.
• If Erdoğan does not do something radical and this loss continues, he may reach a point of no return.

Critical mass and the point of no return

The point of no return has two areas of application. One is in transportation. It’s the point at which a ship heading out to sea or an aircraft in the air no longer has enough fuel to return to its starting point: it must continue on its course.

There is also a definition we can borrow from science to politics.

In physics and chemistry, critical mass and the point of no return refer to points at which it is no longer possible to stop and revert to the previous state. If you bend a twig beyond a certain point, it will break instead of returning to its original shape. If you apply more force than a metal plate can withstand, it will deform irreversibly into a pot or helmet. In nuclear energy, atoms undergoing a chain reaction can be controlled up to a certain point; you can convert the energy released into electricity. But once the atoms in a chain reaction exceed “critical mass,” it’s good luck finding a place to hide; it can no longer be stopped or reverted.

We could say Erdoğan’s challenge is to control the chain reaction within the AKP before it reaches critical mass.

Erdoğan’s dilemma and three scenarios

Erdoğan’s dilemma is essentially whether to continue with the AKP. This was also among the options for Turgut Özal, had he lived. Özal saw that the Motherland Party (ANAP), which he founded and brought to power, had ceased to be innovative and started to represent a status quo identity disconnected from the people, and that it had reached a “critical mass” that was showing signs of collapsing under the weight it was carrying.

There are no concrete signs that Erdoğan has made this assessment yet, but his decision to spread out the review process of March 31 over time may give him an opportunity to consider the option of “looking for a new one.”

To make the tough decision, he needs to evaluate three scenarios ahead of him:

1. Embrace the “political normalization” line, or “softening in politics,” initiated by CHP leader Özgür Özel’s dialogue proposal genuinely,
2. Continue the power politics he has followed so far, perhaps with some cosmetic concessions, with the support of MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli,
3. Use the time gained for the March 31 review to cover up the anticipated improvements in the economy until August-September, possibly with foreign policy-security issues, not to transform the AKP but to make people forget the defeat.

The tough decision, the bitter pill

The first scenario implies a retreat from the polarization and confrontation politics that have kept Erdoğan in power for twenty years. (CHP even announced the seating arrangement for his visit, but the date for the visit he said would happen “soon” has not yet been announced.) Choosing this scenario would indeed be the most radical and bitter decision for Erdoğan. It might also require a process of self-criticism and purging within the AKP.

The second scenario means renewing the informal, unwritten coalition protocol between the AKP and MHP within the People’s Alliance. It would require both Erdoğan and Bahçeli to shed certain burdens but would mean the continuation of polarization/confrontation politics.

The third scenario is the least risky for Erdoğan. It means dismissing a few scapegoats within the AKP, considering March 31 not as a sign of a “chain reaction” but as a “road accident,” and not deviating from his current course.

In this case, the CHP’s task might be to manage the municipalities they have won well and satisfy the citizens instead of fighting among themselves.”