Weakening the Strong Mayor: Partisan Division and Presidential Intervention in Istanbul

Abstract

Istanbul, the leading city of Turkey, is a good case for analyzing the conflictual relations of the mayor with the city council and the central government. Istanbul had been governed by the mayors from the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) and its predecessor parties since 1994. In the local elections held in March 2019, which was repeated only for Istanbul after two months with a highly suspicious decision by the Supreme Election Board, the AKP lost this city. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, has harsh relations with the city council, which is dominated by the AKP and its alliance party, the Nationalist Movement Party ( Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi; MHP). What exacerbates this situation is the partisan intervention of the increasingly authoritarian central government that weakens the mayor's position. The mayor tries to counterbalance the power of the city council and central government agencies through livestreaming the city council meetings and attracting civic engagement on his side. This article is expected to contribute to the literature on mayoral leadership, partisan constraints to mayoral powers as well as the mayor's strategies against the authoritarian intervention of the central governments. Mayor İmamoğlu's strategies and measures adopted for overcoming the efforts of blocking his agenda by both the council and central government might inspire other mayors experiencing similar partisan constraints.