We had quite an exhausting night. At around 3 am, I decided to quit and return home. Thanks to the municipality’s offer, we were organizing our traditional election watch program, this time in Kadıköy. Here are some sincere notes.
We, the opposition elements, have a data problem. As of 23:43, a friend affiliated with AKP sent me his screen share from the party’s internal vote page. I did not (want to) believe him, but the result was nearly the same as the official results by the election council, which CHP also accepted.
As of 00:55, a CHP party friend already knew there would be a runoff. However, the official opposition line did not announce that until around 03:30. During this time, we had at least three sources of election data: Anatolian Agency, the government tool, ANKA, supposedly close to CHP and CHP’s data from its party officials in the field. All released different results until the early morning. CHP would announce its results on a specific website, but it could not. The person in charge of this failed for the third time! Because he is from a powerful CHP family, so he will not be demoted. –Oh, just now, I see that Kılıçdaroğlu finally dismissed him!
Here are a few notes:
Younger votes may have gone to Turkish nationalist outliers. The third candidate, Sinan Ogan, is now a kingmaker.
Whenever AKP promotes nationalist rhetoric, Turkish nationalists benefit more than AKP. İYİP, a nationalist opposition member, seems to have lost votes to the third nationalist candidate and could not contribute well to their own candidate. CHP increased its votes a bit, but its allies did not bring in many votes. Saadet got fewer votes than its spinoff, Yeniden Refah. This is just too bad.
The Kurdish bloc proved how reliable it is as it voted for Kılıçdaroğlu en masse.
CHP’s communication strategy on election night failed. It started well but then failed. The mayors’ live announcements were good but became less informative later. Kılıçdaroğlu got angry in the end and did not provide much. National Alliance leaders’ group announcement, in the end, was an unmotivating one.
TİP (Workers’ Party of Turkey) got ambitious and decided to participate in the election separately. If they were on the pro-Kurdish YSP lists, they would benefit more. But I know the types. I am surprised they could come to this stage without being divided into several parties. I assume YSP notes this for future elections.
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