THIS TIME around, there was no room for doubt. In late March Ekrem Imamoglu had won the Istanbul mayoral election by a fraction of a percentage point. On June 23rd he won the re-run by a landslide.
Mr Imamoglu’s victory in the re-run was the best showing for any opposition politician in decades, and Turkey’s biggest city celebrated in style. Street parties erupted in some neighbourhoods. “Sunny days will come,” sang a crowd of young people by the Bosphorus.
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Given the scale of Mr Imamoglu’s success, there was no room for the antics that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pulled last time to deny the new mayor his first victory. Then, after Mr Imamoglu prevailed by just 13,000 votes, Mr Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development (AK) party challenged the outcome, accused the opposition of stealing the vote and leaned heavily on the country’s election board to order a repeat.
The move turned out to be one of the worst gambits of Mr Erdogan’s career. In the new election, Mr Imamoglu received a solid 54% of the vote to 45% for AK’s candidate, Binali Yildirim, a former prime minister—a margin of over 800,000. Turnout reached 85%, boosted by thousands of Istanbul residents who cancelled or interrupted their holidays to be home on election day. Mr Yildirim conceded in front of the cameras as soon as the first results were made public. In a written statement, Mr Erdogan congratulated the new mayor shortly thereafter.
Mr Imamoglu forged a coalition that included his secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kurdish voters, a breakaway nationalist group and some Islamists. But he has also earned the sympathy and the votes of a growing number of disenchanted ruling-party supporters. A street vendor in one conservative Istanbul neighborhood said he was so appalled by the re-run decision that he chose to stop voting AK. “What they did to Imamoglu was an injustice,” he said. “There’s been too much corruption,” another former AK voter said. “They made too many mistakes.”
Mr Imamoglu’s success should be a lesson for his party, says Fehmi Koru, a newspaper columnist. By running a relentlessly positive campaign and refusing to play by the rules of Turkey’s identity politics, he was able to make inroads with conservative voters, something the CHP has not managed for decades. Assuming that Mr Imamoglu can reshape the party in his own image, it might finally broaden its reach. The CHP has long been unable to attract more than 25% or so of the electorate. Mr Imamoglu may soon shine on the national stage, says Mr Koru, though he needs to prove he can run Istanbul. Success in Turkey’s largest city as mayor was exactly how Mr Erdogan himself rose to prominence in the 1990s.
For now, however, Mr Erdogan remains in charge of the country. Turkey’s leader enjoys sweeping executive powers, which he can use to undermine Mr Imamoglu. He also retains the support of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which gives him control of the parliament. At least in theory, Mr Erdogan does not have to face another election for four years.
But the ground beneath his feet is starting to shake. Emboldened by Mr Imamoglu’s success, some estranged AK politicians, already poised to launch a rival conservative party, might do so sooner rather than later. The economy, which clawed its way out of recession a few months ago, faces the risk of another downturn later this year. Possible American sanctions over Mr Erdogan’s purchase of a Russian missile-defence system would compound the damage severely.
The opposition at last has the wind at its back, with an inspiring new leader. Together with Istanbul, the CHP and its allies now control municipalities that account for roughly 70% of Turkey’s economy, says Sinan Ulgen of Carnegie Europe, a think-tank. “They now have the means to fund their political activities, and to eliminate AK’s network of patronage,” he says.
Mr Imamoglu, meanwhile, has the country’s attention, a mandate to shake up his own party and a chance to heal a divided society. “The era of partisanship is over,” he said in a victory speech in front of a crowd of elated supporters. “The era of rights, law and justice is here.” Elsewhere, the same words might sound bland. In today’s Turkey, as Mr Erdogan knows, they are nothing short of revolutionary.
THIS week France came back from the beach for la rentrée, the return to school and work after the holidays. The summer had been far from restful. It began with two terrorist attacks in Nice and Normandy, followed by a weeks-long political fixation with the “burkini”, a cross between a burqa and a swimsuit, which dozens of mayors of seaside resorts tried to ban from their beaches. The resurgence of identity politics in France, at a time of heightened tension over Islam and security, now looks likely to frame next year’s presidential election.
The row over the burkini will probably abate as the beaches empty. On August 26th, France’s highest administrative court suspended a ban imposed in the Mediterranean resort of Villeneuve-Loubet after it was challenged by human-rights groups. The court ruled that the mayor had not proved any risk to public order, and that the ban constituted a “manifestly illegal” infringement of “fundamental liberties”.
Had France not been under a state of emergency, the matter might not have flared up as it did. But the French are hyper-sensitive to signs of overt Muslim religiosity. Politicians, roused from their holiday hide-outs, seized on the burkini row—and not just on the right. Manuel Valls, the Socialist prime minister, called the burkini an “enslavement” of women, and claimed it was part of a political project to impose hard-line Islamist rules on France. In a speech, he noted that Marianne, a female figure symbolising the French nation, is classically depicted with bare breasts. The implication seemed to be that women in burkinis are un-French, while true French women go topless.
France has a long history of trying to keep religion out of public life. A law of 1905 entrenched the principle of laïcité, or strict secularism, after a struggle against authoritarian Catholicism. The country banned the headscarf and other “conspicuous” religious symbols from state schools in 2004, and the face-covering burqa from public places in 2010. Indeed, such laws enjoy broad cross-party support. Yet secular zeal at times overrides common sense, or sensitivity to France’s Muslim minority, estimated to form about 10% of the population. Unlike the burqa, which is banned from the beach, the burkini does not even cover the face. As Olivier Roy, a French scholar of Islam, points out, it also offers a certain modern liberty to Muslim women who otherwise might not swim. Hard-line Islamists, he says, would not allow women to bathe in the first place.
The burkini frenzy sets the tone for an election season of culture wars over French identity. Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president vying for the nomination of the conservative Republican party, says he wants to ban the burkini altogether. So does Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who claims that the “soul of France” is at stake. Yet amid this feverish identity politics, some voices are trying to appeal for calm. One is Alain Juppé, a centre-right former prime minister and presidential hopeful. He backed the local burkini bans, but says national legislation would be provocative. Another, on the left, is Emmanuel Macron, who resigned on August 30th as economy minister.
Mr Macron’s departure had been widely expected. In April he launched a new political movement, En Marche! (“On the Move!”). Although he stopped short of declaring this week that he would run for president, that may be a matter of time, say some close to him. A former adviser to President François Hollande, Mr Macron is now an unambiguous rival to his Socialist former mentor, whose own chances of running for re-election dwindle by the day. The ex-minister is trying to build a platform of economic reform to resist populist nationalism and identity politics.
On leaving his ministry, Mr Macron said that his government experience had taught him the limits of the current political system. He now hopes to redraw the partisan map, pulling in support from both left and right for a pro-European, centrist movement that embraces globally-minded progressive politics. This is a daunting challenge, not least because Mr Macron has never stood for election for any office before, is short of money and has little parliamentary support.
It also seems to cut against the the national mood. After 18 months of barbaric terrorist attacks, France is leaning towards tightening restrictions on liberty, not loosening them. Freed from the constraints of the economics portfolio, Mr Macron will now be able to speak out on matters such as terrorism and religion. With the country so on edge, France could do with a dose of measured reflection.
