Turkey's Saadet Party could sway Istanbul elections
Turkey's fundamentalist Saadet Party will run its mayoral candidate in the June 23 repeat election in Istanbul, possibly tipping the results in favor of the opposition party.
ANKARA, Turkey — A small story tucked away in Turkish newspapers this week could become significant in five weeks’ time: The Saadet Party, which finished third in the Istanbul municipal elections, announced it would run in the repeat election June 23.
The Islamist fundamentalist party got only 1.2% of the city’s vote March 31, but its 103,000 voters are ideologically closer to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan than to the secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Pundits had predicted that if Saadet did not run again, most of its supporters would vote for the AKP candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, rather than the CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu on June 23. As Imamoglu defeated Yildirim by a mere 13,000 votes in the first election, Saadet supporters could well give victory to the government in the second election.
However, Saadet has often accused Erdogan of destroying Turkey’s civil liberties. It criticized the Supreme Election Council’s decision to cancel the March 31 elections and hold a rerun. And in announcing its decision to stand again, it made clear it was thinking of the national interest.
