Winners and losers of the election

On May 14, the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections continue to be debated. First of all, both major alliances claim that they won or the other side lost. It is quite normal for such comments to be made as a result of elections that did not yield a definitive result. In the May 14, 2023 election, where the turnout rate was lower compared to the 2018 election, it can be said that the masses bought survival more than the economy, thus strengthening the nationalist and conservative structure. 

Let us examine the issue in more detail and reveal the successes and failures.

1. Although the fact that the candidate of the People's Alliance, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, could not be elected in the first round for the first time in the elections he participated in seems like a failure, it is an important success that he was the candidate who received the most votes. In an environment with so many economic problems, the success of still coming first is only meaningful if he wins the presidency in the second round. If Erdoğan fails to win the second round of the election, this first round victory will be meaningless. 

2. In terms of the number of deputies, the People's Alliance's 321 deputies and passing the 50 percent threshold is an important achievement. However, it is obvious that the AK Party has suffered losses in terms of vote rates and total number of deputies. The Ak Party, which came to power with 34% of the vote in its first election in 2002, remained at 36% in this election, despite the presence of some other parties. This is the lowest vote share since its first election. The decrease of 29 deputies compared to the previous period is a clear failure. 

3. The AK Party lost votes in 75 out of 81 provinces, receiving around 2,200,000 fewer votes than in the 2018 elections, of which around 1,500,000 votes went to the YRP. It was observed that these votes lost by the Ak Parti were not fully reflected on the Millet alliance components. Rather, the lost votes were directed towards nationalist and conservative parties within the same alliance and this situation benefited the YRP, BBP or MHP. 

4. The prediction that the voters who left the Ak Parti would go to the anti-Ak Parti but similar parties within the Millet Alliance was not fully accurate and was the main reason for the failure of the Millet Alliance. Voters who left the AK Party had difficulty in stamping their preference on the CHP logo.  While the participation of these parties in the elections with the CHP logo benefited them, it harmed the alliance and the CHP. If these parties had entered the elections within the alliance but outside of the CHP, they would have received more votes than they did and the distribution of ministries would have become clearer. With the exception of the two major parties in the National Alliance, the other parties in the National Alliance got much more deputies than they deserved with very low votes. It has become clear that these parties in the National Alliance have been given too many concessions according to their vote rates. If the leaders of the parties below the threshold had run as deputies in the provinces where they were strong, as the People's Alliance did, and if the presidential candidate had been announced as Kılıçdaroğlu and his deputies as İmamoğlu, Yavaş and Akşener, much higher gains could have been achieved. 

5. It is an interesting result of this election that some party leaders became MPs while others did not. While the leaders of the AK Party, CHP, İyi, Saadet, DP, Deva, Gelecek, BBP and Zafer Party did not become MPs, the leaders of TİP, Green Left, DSP, HÜDAPAR, YRP and MHP became MPs. The leaders of the 3 parties with the highest percentage of votes (AK Party, CHP and İyi Party, approximately 36+26+10=72%) and the remaining 3 parties with a total of almost 75% of the votes could not be elected, due to the strangeness of the electoral system.

6. Ata Alliance Presidential candidate Mr. Sinan Oğan receiving more than 5% of the votes is a success. On the other hand, his use of this situation as a bargaining chip for the second round and his words understood in this sense were considered as opportunism and were not very pleasant for him. The fact that he received more than 5% of the votes can be seen as his votes and the votes of Mr. Muharrem İnce, who withdrew as a candidate. It is also clear that those who do not want both grand alliances are consolidated in Oğan. Although it is not clear which of the two candidates Mr. Oğan will support in the second round, it is a very pragmatist approach for him to say that he will support whoever gives how much. It would be better for him to display the political stance he believes in during the two-week period and declare his position without any demand in this direction, in order to consolidate his political position in the future. 

In sum, the winners of the May 14 election were two partridges. 

MHP and YRP.

The losers of the election are the others.