Expand / Collapse search
Watch TV
Menu

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

Middle East

For Erdogan, local elections are matter of national survival

Associated Press
Published | Updated
  • a14ac854-
    Image 1 of 2

    FILE- In this file photo dated March 4, 2019, A woman walks past posters showing Binali Yildirim, left, the mayoral candidate for Istanbul of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) and the candidate of Republican People's Party (CHP), Ekrem Imamoglu, right, in Istanbul, ahead of local elections scheduled for March 31. For Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the local elections are not just a vote to decide who should collect the garbage and maintain roads, they are about Turkey's future national "survival." (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File)

  • 4985a992-
    Image 2 of 2

    FILE-In this Sunday, March 24, 2019 file photo, some thousands of supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, gather to celebrate the Kurdish New Year and to attend a campaign rally in Istanbul, ahead of local elections scheduled for March 31, 2019. Millions of Kurdish votes could be crucial in determining the outcome of the elections being held amid a heavy government crackdown on the HDP for alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants.(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File)

ANKARA, Turkey – For Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sunday's local elections are not just a vote to decide who should collect the garbage and maintain roads — they are about Turkey's future national "survival."

After 17 years in office, the Turkish leader has a tight grip on power, but he is campaigning hard for a strong mandate that he says he needs to protect Turkey against threats from domestic and foreign enemies and to press ahead with military operations against Kurdish militants inside Turkey as well as in Syria and Iraq.

Analysts say the rhetoric is aimed at diverting attention away from rising inflation, a sharp increase in food prices and high unemployment that has hit his traditional low-income voter base particularly hard.