In Turkey, the opposition won the local elections in a landslide.
It won not only in big cities like Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir - where everyone was expecting it and opposition mayors were already in power - but also in many regions of the Turkish countryside that had previously consistently voted for Erdogan.
Turkey's elections used to look like this: almost all of Anatolia was firmly painted in Erdogan's colours, while liberal coastal towns stretched along the coast in a thin crescent. Well, and the Kurds in their Kurdish corner.
In this election, the opposition flooded almost the entire map with its colours. The last regions loyal to Erdogan remained a thin belt sandwiched between the sea-to-sea opposition and the Kurdish lands (where Kurds vote for parties for Kurds).
Erdogan has already announced his departure after the end of his last term, when he barely managed to win a run-off presidential election against an unpopular opposition grandfather last spring. This election will clearly finish him off: the Turkish electorate is tired of the status quo and wants change. If Erdogan does not tire under the weight of defeat and resign early, he will surely not be re-elected in 2028.
Erdogan's century is coming to an end.
It won not only in big cities like Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir - where everyone was expecting it and opposition mayors were already in power - but also in many regions of the Turkish countryside that had previously consistently voted for Erdogan.
Turkey's elections used to look like this: almost all of Anatolia was firmly painted in Erdogan's colours, while liberal coastal towns stretched along the coast in a thin crescent. Well, and the Kurds in their Kurdish corner.
In this election, the opposition flooded almost the entire map with its colours. The last regions loyal to Erdogan remained a thin belt sandwiched between the sea-to-sea opposition and the Kurdish lands (where Kurds vote for parties for Kurds).
Erdogan has already announced his departure after the end of his last term, when he barely managed to win a run-off presidential election against an unpopular opposition grandfather last spring. This election will clearly finish him off: the Turkish electorate is tired of the status quo and wants change. If Erdogan does not tire under the weight of defeat and resign early, he will surely not be re-elected in 2028.
Erdogan's century is coming to an end.
