Turkey's local elections: Erdogan's constitution plans at stake
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00:00 Yes, well, Erdogan is going to be in power until 2028 and nothing that happens today
00:06 can change that. But these elections are seen as a bellwether of which direction Turkey is going to
00:13 move in. Because Erdogan has said that after these elections, he's going to change the
00:19 constitution. How far will he change the constitution to consolidate his own power?
00:25 That is what is at stake here. You know, Istanbul, 16 million people, Ankara, 5 million people,
00:33 Izmir, 4 million people. These are the biggest cities in the land. And together, they amount
00:40 to almost a third of the population. Now, analysts say that if Erdogan wins, or Erdogan's parties,
00:49 candidates win all three cities, Erdogan will feel that he can do anything he likes,
00:55 and that he wants to change the constitution to allow him to run again in 2028. And he also
01:02 wants to remove the remaining elements of judicial independence from the constitution.
01:08 So, against that, the opposition is standing, believing that if the opposition takes all three
01:17 cities, that will be a check on Erdogan's powers. And the polls at the moment, notably the most
01:26 reliable opinion poll company, Metropole, is predicting that the opposition will win all three
01:33 cities. However, polls have been wrong. They were wrong last year. So it's an exciting day here.
01:40 Another bit of excitement here, Jasper, are these smaller parties and what voters might do
01:46 if they abandon the mainstream parties? How could that affect the outcome?
01:50 Yes, there are two smaller parties that could throw a spanner in the works for either side
02:00 in this election. On the one side, there is the New Welfare Party, which is a conservative
02:07 Islamic group that draws votes from Erdogan's party. And it has come up with two policies
02:14 that are widely supported. Firstly, it's campaigning to stop trade with Israel.
02:20 The Turkish Statistics Institute found that trade with Israel actually increased
02:27 after the Israeli-Hamas war began in October. And that's a very unpopular thing for Turks.
02:37 Secondly, the New Welfare Party is saying that it will double the lowest pension. And the lowest
02:45 pensioners are drawing a sum of money that is below the minimum wage. So that's also a very
02:52 popular policy. On the other side of the political spectrum, there is the pro-Kurdish party,
02:58 which now goes by the name of DEM. Now, the Kurds make up about 10% of the Istanbul electorate,
03:04 and they have long-term grievances against Erdogan. Recently, these grievances have been
03:10 heightened when Erdogan said that in the spring this year, he would launch a new offensive against
03:15 the PKK in Iraq and Syria. But if the Kurds vote for the DEM party, that will draw votes
03:25 from the incumbent mayor, the opposition supporter, Ekrem Ä°mamoÄŸlu. He belongs to the
03:33 Republican People's Party, the biggest party in the opposition. However, there is a theory
03:39 that many Kurds today will vote for Ä°mamoÄŸlu as mayor of Greater Istanbul, but they will vote for
03:47 DEM candidates when it comes to their district mayor and their district municipalities. How
03:54 viable that theory is will be shown tonight when the results come in.