The Peoples’ Republican Party (CHP) candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu defeated the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) candidate and former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and was elected as new Istanbul mayor in the election on Sunday last week.

Professor Houston from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, also believes the election could be a beginning for his further political defeats, warning that Erdogan may make many hurdles on the way Imamoglu is going through the years in Istanbul municipality.

What follows is the professor’s full answers to Kurdpress questions;

It seems that Erdogan and AKP defeat in the rerun elections will leave some consequences, what will be the consequences?

First, what does the election result mean for Turkish politics?

The Refah Party, and then its successor party (the AKP) first won the Greater or Metropolitan Municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara in 1994, and have won every election for those two cities since, until their municipal defeats in 2019. That equates to 25 years of continuous government of the AKP over Turkey's two most important cities, Ankara as the city of government and administration, and Istanbul as Turkey's economic powerhouse. In Istanbul, of course, Tayyip Erdogan became Mayor in 1994, and so the rise to power of the Refah/AKP political party and the wider social movement associated with it coincided with the emergence of Tayyip Erdogan as Turkey's most influential political figure.

Turkey does not have a federal system, so the municipalities, especially what is called the 'Greater Municipality' or ‘Metropolitan Municipalities’ of Istanbul (which is what Ekrem Imamoglu has just won) and Ankara, are in effect the second tier of governance in Turkey. And although the power and autonomy of the municipalities is constrained by the Government in power in Ankara, municipalities do have significant influence over planning, over raising revenue (taxing) for their own projects, and of course in providing services for the inhabitants of Istanbul. Indeed the budget of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is larger than many small countries' budgets alone.

All this means that the loss of Istanbul by the AKP is a major political and economic event, as it now gives an opportunity to a rival political party to showcase their urban competence and to provide services to Istanbul's inhabitants. This is important because at its core, the AKP emerged as a municipality party, and its popularity for decades has been connected to its ability to built housing, to make new roads and bridges, to construct new transport infrastructure, to design parks, establish shopping malls, and to regenerate Istanbul's built environments (including its tourist infrastructure, and cultural heritage conservation). Turkish voters have a pragmatic streak in them (as do most voters everywhere), and so a competent administration that 'gets things done', and that is not too corrupt in its dealings with the public, will be popular with the electorate. So for the CHP (the biggest opposition party), winning Istanbul is (potentially) a major game-changer, as it allows it to develop its own practice of 'democratic municipalism.'

On top of that, control of Istanbul’s planning processes, its development possibilities, its marketing and organizing of tourism and conferences, its provisioning, and its urban sustainability processes gives the CHP enormous new opportunities for business and finance, for rewarding its supporters with contracts and services, for establishing new companies dedicated to city servicing, for new enterprises-oriented to cultural production, arts entrepreneurship, and tourism. Istanbul is a global city, one of the biggest mega-cities in the world, with a population of 20 million people at any one time (counting tourists). In brief, control over its growth, investment, and development facilitates a huge number of new opportunities for the incoming government and its cadres.

So what does all this mean for Turkish politics? It means a rejuvenated Opposition party, which is now governing the cities of Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul. (The Kurdish party won Diyarbakir, so parties in opposition to the AKP now administer most of Turkey’s most important cities).

But it also means a return in some ways to the 1970s, where the political party in power at the national level (and the President himself) is from a different party to the governments or administrations at the municipal level. In the late 1970s that led to a disastrous crisis in municipal services and competencies, as the national government starved the municipal governments of funds. We can expect to see the AKP and the President change or ‘reform’ the financing arrangements and tax regimes for the metropolitan municipalities, now that they have lost control over them, in an attempt to undermine the CHP’s ability to provide good governance and new forms of urban innovation. So political struggle in Turkey will switch to the local, urban level, and we can expect new and bitter disputes over the financing and attempted re-centralizing of Ankara’s control over municipalities.

As for the President Tayyip Erdogan, it is hard to say how it will affect his power over Turkish political, social, and economic processes. The constitutional referendum in 2018 gave the Presidency virtual control over the Parliament, so in one way it will be politics as usual at the national level. But the AKP and Tayyip Erdogan have been intimately connected to Istanbul and its development over the last 25 years, and for that reason alone this election result is significant in bruising his prestige. It is, in brief, both a real political loss and a symbolic sign that the authoritarianism of the President is not accepted by huge numbers of urban citizens in Turkey. After all, Istanbul also voted NO (by a small majority, 50.5 - 49.5 %) in the referendum on constitutional change last year, a result that heralded Istanbul’s disillusionment with the AKP and its dominant figure, Tayyip Erdogan. In sum, I think the election result breathes new life into Turkish democracy, as it rejuvenates urban issues as core battleground for citizens’ rights.

Turks believe the one who becomes Istanbul mayor, can be the next top official in the country. Can the belief come true about Imamoglu to become next president of Turkey?

No one can possibly know how he will fare as Mayor of Istanbul, let alone whether he will be a Presidential candidate in the future. It is way too early to say anything about him.

Erdogan tried to use Kurds and Ocalan for victory over the opposition in this election but he couldn't, why?

It appears as if the call by Demirtas to vote for Imamoglu was more efficacious than Ocalan’s recommendation to remain neutral (and not vote). Because no one knows how many Kurds there are in Istanbul, let alone in Turkey, given ethnic background is not asked in the census, the voting effect of Kurds in Istanbul is hard to gauge. Reports note that Kurds voted in the majority for Imamoglu, which is hardly surprising given the AKP’s record in the Kurdish majority areas of Turkey.

Kurds helped the Opposition to win the elections, what can the opposition and especially CHP do for Kurds in return?

What can Imamoglu do for Kurds?, is the wrong question. What can Istanbul’s inhabitants, including Kurds, do for themselves in the new political environment?, is more important. Kurds will only get what they want if they organize and participate in the new urban politics that will now unfold in Turkey’s major cities. Do they want more green spaces/parks named after Kurdish notables? Organize to do it. If Kurds want their rights to the city, they must seek to take them now.

Reporter’s code: 50101