 Party has named a candidate for mayor of İstanbul, posing a new challenge to the city’s incumbent mayor from the main opposition party, which had the İYİ Party’s support in the 2019 election.){kind=link}
The nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party has named a candidate for mayor of İstanbul, posing a new challenge to the city’s incumbent mayor from the main opposition party, which had the İYİ Party’s support in the 2019 election.
İYİ Party leader Meral Akşener announced during a party meeting on Wednesday that Buğra Kavuncu, an İYİ Party lawmaker and former head of the party’s provincial branch in İstanbul, will run in the local election, scheduled for March 31, as her party’s mayoral candidate in Turkey’s largest city.
She said Kavuncu, 51, asked to be nominated as the mayoral candidate for İstanbul and expressed a strong desire to win the election and manage the city.
In his first comments to the media following his nomination, Kavuncu said he will explain to voters why he can do a better job of running İstanbul as well as elaborating on his dreams, projects and promises for the city.
“We decided to run independently in the election. Every one of our party’s voters will do what they have to do,” he said.
The İYİ Party did not nominate a candidate in the 2019 local election and supported main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, who ended the years-long Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule in the city.
The İYİ Party and the CHP established the “Nation Alliance” before the 2018 general election, which was extended to the 2019 local elections and the presidential election last May with the inclusion of four small opposition parties, calling itself the “Table of Six.”
The alliance, however, failed to get its presidential candidate, former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a win against incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Following the defeat, Akşener ruled out further election alliances and said her party would nominate its own candidates in all provinces for the local elections.
Akşener said she thinks, based on her experience, that election alliances inflict damage on the country, so she is planning to avoid such alliances for the local elections on March 31.
In addition to AKP candidate Murat Kurum, an AKP lawmaker and a former minister, İmamoğlu now faces Kavuncu as another rival, which reduces his chances for re-election in the absence of İYİ Party voters.
There were comments on social media that Akşener’s move to nominate a mayoral candidate for İstanbul, who is almost sure to lose the election, is tantamount to offering the city to the AKP on a silver platter.
According to Tanju Tosun, a professor of political science, the İYİ Party’s goal in fielding a candidate in İstanbul is not to win the election but to increase its vote a bit by nominating a popular politician and to brush off criticism against itself over its past election alliances.
Kurdish voters also supported İmamoğlu in the 2019 elections, but it is not clear now whether the incumbent mayor will get their support again.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) has not yet promoted any candidate but voiced resentment and disappointment about its support for CHP candidates in previous elections.
Kurds say they do not see sufficient assistance from the CHP for their demands regarding the expansion of their rights in return for their support for the party’s candidate in critical elections.
Meanwhile, Başak Demirtaş, the wife of jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş, recently said she may consider running for mayor of İstanbul if the DEM Party approves her candidacy.
She said in such a case, her candidacy would not be a strategic move aimed at helping another candidate win or lose but to win the election herself.