Opposition coordination under a competitive authoritarian regime: the case of the 2019 local elections in Turkey

Abstract

Dr. Esen acknowledges the financial support of the Young Scientist Award (BAGEP) of the Science Academy, Turkey. On 31 March 2019, Turkish voters headed to the polls to elect their mayors and municipal council members. Although the candidates supported by the opposition bloc outperformed the incumbent AKP and its coalition partner MHP in major metropolitan cities, this election also demonstrated that Turkey’s political regime still exhibits competitive authoritarian features. In this chapter, we offer a detailed analysis of the recent local elections in Turkey by focusing on the factors that enabled the opposition to achieve this strong performance. We argue that three factors contributed to the opposition’s success: (1) decreasing performance legitimacy of the regime; (2) a successful opposition campaign centred on de-polarization; and (3) effective coordination among opposition parties. This chapter also offers an account of the implications of the 2019 local elections for the sustainability of competitive authoritarianism in Turkey by focusing on the organizational characteristics of the ruling party and prominence of local governments for AKP’s politics of clientelism.