Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AKP party suffered a loss in a rerun of elections held in March.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

“Thank you, Istanbul,” Istanbul’s new mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, 49, said to tens of thousands who gathered to mark his victory after unofficial results showed he won a clear majority of the vote. It is the second time he beat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party to lead Turkey’s largest city.

Imamoglu had narrowly won an earlier mayoral election on March 31, but Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, AKP, which has governed Turkey since 2002, challenged the vote over alleged irregularities.

Imamoglu spent 18 days in office before Turkey’s electoral board annulled the results after weeks of partial recounts.

That won’t be the case this time. The governing party’s candidate, former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, conceded moments after returns showed him trailing well behind Imamoglu, 54% to 45%. Imamoglu increased his lead from a March mayoral election by hundreds of thousands of votes.

Erdogan congratulated Imamoglu in a tweet. Analysts noted that the president, who is grappling with an economic downturn and several international crises, could limit the mayor’s power or undermine Imamoglu’s authority in other ways.

Blow to Erdogan

Erdogan campaigned hard for Yildirim in Istanbul, where the president started his political career as mayor in 1994. Lisel Hintz, an assistant international relations professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, said Imamoglu withstood a divisive campaign and prevailed with a positive message.

The significance of his win “cannot be understated,” Hintz said.

Jubilant supporters chanted “Mayor again! Mayor again!” Others hung out of cars, blaring horns and waving red-and-white Turkish flags.

“You have protected the reputation of democracy in Turkey with the whole world watching,” Imamoglu, his voice hoarse after weeks of campaigning, told supporters.

The economy was the key issue. AKP also lost control of the capital city of Ankara in Turkey’s March local elections, which were held as the country battled high inflation and two credit rating downgrades in the past year.

Melahat Ugen said she switched her vote to the opposition because she could not afford to cover basic expenses.

“I’ve certainly never voted left before,” she said. “But I’m 62, and a bag of onions costs too much. Everything is imported and we can’t afford it.”

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund, argued that the loss of Istanbul is likely to fuel speculation of divisions within the ruling party and among its supporters.

“It’s now clear that a sizable portion of the AKP voters is seriously dissatisfied by policies of the AKP,” he said. “The (opposition) was a house that was united. The AKP house looked like one that was already divided.”

He argued Erdogan is already facing an “a perfect storm” this summer. Erdogan was already at odds with Western allies over Turkey’s plans to buy the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system and its challenge of EU-member Cyprus over natural gas drilling rights.

Erdogan has picked fights with the U.S., Israel and the E.U.

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A senior Turkish official accused Zionist bankers of being behind the Turkish lira’s fall in value. 

By: World Israel News Staff

A senior Turkish official has accused “Zionist bankers” of being behind the plummet of the Turkish lira in recent weeks.

Burhan Kuzu, a founding member of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), suggested in a series of tweets that US President Donald Trump was “unaware” that his country was being run by what he called “Jewish banking families.”

The Turkish currency lost about a quarter of its value in recent weeks as the markets reacted to a diplomatic row between Trump, who imposed tariffs on Turkish metals in response to the arrest of an American pastor, and Erdogan, who is refusing to release him.

“The American people believe that the dollar is the American currency,” Kozo wrote. “In fact, the world is managed by the banknotes printed by 12 families of Zionist bankers of Jewish origin, who number no more than 300,” he alleged.

In another tweet, he called on Trump to “show courage” and wrestle control of the dollar away from the Jewish bankers and print the banknotes himself, warning, however, that Trump could get killed in the process.

Kuzu served as a member of the Turkish parliament until this summer.

Turkish politicians, including Erdogan, periodically level ridiculous and often anti-Semitic accusations against Israel, with many based on classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories such as those found in the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım charged in June that Israel’s victory in this year’s Eurovision song contest was a set-up aimed to ensure that next year’s competition would be held in Jerusalem and thus fuel inter-religious strife.

Turkish-Israeli relations, once one of the closest alliances in the region, have deteriorated sharply under the Islamist AKP. Turkey ended diplomatic relations with Israel from 2011 to 2013 due to the Mavi Marmara incident, in which Turkish activists attempting to break the siege on Gaza ambushed the IDF soldiers sent to intercept them.

Erdogan has also accused Israel of “state terrorism” for defending itself against Hamas rocket attacks and even invited Hamas leader Khaled Mashal for an official visit.

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In a turnaround victory, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Freedom and Justice Party (AKP) won 49% of the vote in the election, handing it a majority of seats in the country’s parliament. Relations between Turkey and Israel have sharply deteriorated under AKP’s Islamist rule.

Erdogan speak to supporters after morning prayers at Eyup Sultan Mosque in Istanbul. (Presidential Press Service/Pool via AP)

By: Lauren Calin, World Israel News

The elections were a repeat of the June elections, when the AKP led in the votes, but did not receive enough seats to rule without forming a coalition. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was unable to form a coalition with any of the opposition parties, forcing a new vote. This may have been part of a deliberate gamble by the AKP in order to restore the party’s majority in parliament. Erdogan had been hoping to win a supermajority in order to push through sweeping constitutional changes that would increase his authority as president.

“The election result has shown that the people have opted for stability and trust that had been endangered in the June 7 vote,” Erdogan said after the vote.

In June, the Kurdish HDP cleared for the first time the 10 percent threshold needed for representation in parliament, taking seats mostly at the ruling party’s expense. But tensions with Turkey’s large Kurdish minority have escalated due to violence against both Kurdish militants and civilians. Preliminary results showed HDP hovering just above 10 percent, losing about 3 percentage points. HDP officials have accused the Turkish government of preventing their party from carrying out a campaign.

HDP’s co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas said the party was forced to cancel election rallies and television stations gave party representatives little air-time amid government attacks branding the party as the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its allies.

Kurdish protests following the vote in Turkey. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

“I regret to say that there wasn’t a fair or equal election… We were not able to lead an election campaign, we tried to protect our people against attacks,” he said.

Turkish-Israeli relations, once one of the closest alliances in the region, have deteriorated sharply under the Islamist AKP. Turkey ended diplomatic relations with Israel from 2011 to 2013 due to the Mavi Marmara incident, in which Turkish activists attempting to break the siege on Gaza ambushed the IDF soldiers sent to intercept them. Erdogan has also accused Israel of “state terrorism” for defending itself against Hamas rocket attacks, and even invited Hamas leader Khaled Mashal for an official visit.

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