President Erdogan’s ruling party takes back control of Istanbul’s Uskudar municipality – a key district that it lost to the opposition in the 2024 local elections.
Dundar Ziya Gultekin, candidate of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, was elected as acting Mayor of Uskudar on Tuesday, defeating Sibel Tan Cetinkaya, the joint candidate of the opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP, and the New Party.
The vote in Uskudar followed the arrest and removal from office of the elected CHP mayor, Sinem Dedetas, in July on alleged corruption charges. Gultekin will serve as acting mayor, as he was elected by the municipal council rather than by popular vote.
The result came after a dramatic shift
The result came after a dramatic shift in the council’s balance. Four councillors elected for the main opposition CHP defected to the AKP days before the vote, while two CHP councillors were detained and so unable to vote.
This left the rival blocs with 21 councillors each. Yet, Gultekin received 23 votes in the secret ballot, indicating that two councillors from the CHP-New Party bloc also backed the AKP candidate. Their identities remain unknown.
“They told people elected from our lists: ‘Either join the AKP or go to prison, either wear the party badge or wear handcuffs,’” Ozgur Celik, Istanbul Provincial Chair of the New Party said after the vote, alleging that some councillors defected because they feared arrest.
The New Party, which cooperated with the CHP
The New Party, which cooperated with the CHP in the Uskudar vote, was established earlier this year by Ozgur Ozel and other politicians who broke away from the CHP after a controversial court ruling annulled the 2023 party congress over alleged irregularities, removing Ozel as leader and reinstating his predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Uskudar is a traditional conservative stronghold and was ruled by the AKP and other conservative and Islamist parties for decades. However, the AKP lost the district and major cities and towns in the 2024 local elections.
Uskudar is located on the Asian side of Istanbul and is home to more than half a million people.
Cetinkaya initially won a mayoral election in August,
Cetinkaya initially won a mayoral election in August, but a court ordered a rerun following an AKP challenge.
Over the last year, dozens of CHP mayors and hundreds of party members have been arrested on corruption and terror charges. Those include the arrest of Istanbul’s Mayor and opposition presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19, 2025. The prosecutor’s office is demanding a 2,352-year prison sentence for him. Imamoglu denies all the accusations.
Opposition politicians, rights groups and international organisations have said that the government is using the judiciary to crush political rivals in what they describe as an unprecedented crackdown.
Source: balkaninsight.com
