A very low attendance at the AKP rally in Istanbul ahead of the local elections
The first electoral rally of the Justice and Development Party in Istanbul in preparation for the municipal elections was disappointing and shocking to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan due to attendance numbers that were significantly lower than expected.
This raised an alarm bell among the party leadership, fearing that the small attendance rate compared to the party rallies that the Justice and Development Party had mobilized on previous occasions would be an indication of a severe loss in the municipal elections, specifically in Istanbul.
President Erdogan didn’t hide his dissatisfaction with the party’s inability to mobilize for the election, and he referred to this in his speech, saying that the number of attendees reached 650,000, but he is accustomed to the presence of nearly a million and a half in the square that hosted the electoral event at Atatürk Airport.
According to Turkish media sources, the number that Erdogan spoke about began to shrink during the celebration and only a quarter of the number remained, which caused embarrassment for the president and party leaders.
Under the headline “Erdogan is upset by the lack of attendance at his mass conference,” the Turkish Zaman newspaper said, “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan complained about the lack of participants in his electoral conference held in Istanbul under the title “The Great Istanbul Rally”.
Erdogan said on Sunday, “There are 650,000 people in front of me now… We used to have 1.5 million people in this square, but today the number has become 650,000 people”.
Zaman newspaper referred to the article, which dealt with the issue of President Erdogan’s electoral rally.
According to the article, “Those who attended the rally began to leave the area even before Erdogan finished his speech, to the point that when Erdogan received all the candidates, only A quarter of the crowd”.
“The number wasn’t small, but it’s clear that Erdogan, who gathered much larger crowds in the same place and attached extraordinary importance to Istanbul, was disappointed today”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his speech during the large election rally in Istanbul, in support of his Justice and Development Party’s candidate for mayor, by participating in singing with the artist Cengiz Kurtoğlu.
In a circulating video, Erdogan appeared singing with Cengiz in front of a large election crowd a song by the Turkish artist Ibrahim Tatlıses.
Turkish municipal elections will be held in 81 states and districts next Sunday, and the Istanbul municipality constitutes a hotspot for competition, as the Justice and Development Party seeks to regain it, after the Republican People’s Party snatched it in the 2019 elections, in the strongest blow the Justice and Development Party received after two decades of retaining the Istanbul municipality.
The victory of the Istanbul municipality is considered an important indicator for political parties in Türkiye of progress in the parliamentary and presidential elections.
Some sources indicate that there is disappointment among the popular base of the AKP with President Erdogan’s policies in dealing with the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Despite the fiery statements made by President Erdogan against the leaders of Israel, Türkiye hasn’t taken any practical action against Israel; It didn’t cut off commercial or security relations or cooperation with Israel.
On the other hand, the Turkish opposition, which was a unified party five years ago, is fighting the battle this time in a fragmented form after its defeat in the presidential elections in 2023.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, which is the third political force in the country, will present its candidates in all the major cities in this country with a population of 85 million population.
Last week’s polls indicated a slight lead for the outgoing mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the candidate of the Republican People’s Party opposing Erdogan, at the expense of Murat Kurum, the Justice and Development candidate and former Minister of Environment, who was entrusted with the task of restoring the Istanbul municipality.
The Yeniden Refah (New Welfare) Party, an Islamist formation, attracted large crowds in conservative towns in Anatolia.
The AKP began to look suspiciously at Welfare, especially after the withdrawal of the New Welfare Party, led by Mehmet Ali Fatih Erbakan, from the People’s Alliance headed by the ruling Justice and Development Party.
In the last parliamentary elections, the “New Welfare” party managed to obtain 1.5 million votes, representing 2.8% of the total votes cast.
