​Everyone is a winner, but some more so than others

TURKEY - In Brief 01 Apr 2019 by Atilla Yesilada
At 07:00 am Istanbul time, High Election Council (HEC) kept mum about who won Istanbul, as both candidates claimed victory by the tiniest of margins.Social media is aflame with rumors of skirmishes within HEC, with at least one of the judges injured.Yet, I shall not play the forensics poll analyst in this first impressions about the municipal elections, preferring to wait for the official announcement and the reports from international observers to judge the results. With Istanbul still in question, I can only say that both alliances have won, but CHP-IYIP is ahead by style points. AKP-MHP won because it achieved two major objectives. First the total vote of the alliance remained above 50%, declining by only 2% vs 24 June. Despite AKPs massive pre-election pork-barreling and its absolute control over the media, this achievement can’t be underestimated. In some sense the Presidential System and AKP-MHP alliance have been ratified by the electorate,with few reasons to fear for early elections at least for the next year. Secondly, AKP-MHP clawed back 3-4 provinces from pro-Kurdish HDP.It appears that the provision of ample welfare payments and other public services through Interior Ministry appointed “administrators” replacing HDP mayors had swayed some Kurds. As a caveat, HDP claims fraud in two provinces, about which I shall await NGO reports to reach a judgement. The biggest winner is MHP, which stole 7 provinces from AKP, and one town from CHP(in Istanbul).Pollsters commenting on election night broadcastsclaim MHP was instrumental in propelling AKP in some close races. This is certainly true in Istanbul. On the other hand, because of its alliance with AKP, Bahceli ced...

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