TURKISH Islamist party Yeniden Refah took more votes than expected in Turkiye's municipal elections on Sunday, undermining the ruling AKP party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and contributing to painful losses in major cities across the country.
By taking 6.2 per cent of the vote nationwide, Yeniden Refah, or "New Welfare", has established itself as the third force in Turkish politics.
Founded in 2018, Yeniden Refah carries on the spirit of Necmettin Erbakan, an influential politician who was once Erdogan's mentor.
In the late 1960s, Erbakan created the Milli Gorus (National Vision) Islamist movement that inspired many political parties in Turkiye and has a wide following amongst the Turkish diaspora in Germany and France.
A 21-year-old Erdogan took his first political steps with the party and it was thanks to the support of Erbakan that he was elected Istanbul mayor in 1994.
But relations with his spiritual father deteriorated when Erdogan and his allies tried to unseat him at the head of the Refah party and then created AKP in 2002, excluding him.
Erbakan, who was called hodja (the professor), died in 2011, and one of his sons, Fatih Erbakan, relaunched the party in 2018 under the name Yeniden Refah.
In the eyes of many observers, the young Erbakan has avenged his father in contributing to Erdogan's election defeats on Sunday, by draining votes from the AKP and allowing the secular opposition to win not only in Istanbul but also in Ankara, Izmir and Bursa.
Yeniden Refah's conservative-Islamic views are more rigid than those of AKP, which is by comparison a more mainstream religious conservative party.
"We will close LGBT associations once we are in power. It's a heresy forbidden by all religions," its party leader has said.
The party opposes feminism and in 2021 supported Turkiye's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, which aims to combat violence against women.
In recent months, the party has particularly denounced Turkiye's continued trade with Israel, despite the war in Gaza.
"If the government stops trading with Israel, closes the radar in Malatya (installed in 2012 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of which Turkey is a member) that protects Israel and doubles pensions to 20,000 Turkish lira (€580) a month, we are prepared to withdraw our candidate in Istanbul," Erbakan offered several days before the election.
Analysts say Yeniden Refah attracted many voters by placing the war in Gaza and inflation — currently running at 67 per cent — at the heart of its campaign.
Yeniden Refah, which supported Erdogan's presidential re-election campaign in 2023, won in two previously AKP-run provinces on Sunday, Sanliurfa in the south-east and Yozgat in the centre.
With 6.2 per cent of the vote nationally, it did better than Erdogan's coalition partner, the MHP (National Action Party), which took five per cent.
"One should never trust those who tried to make us lose, even if they were once on our side," Erdogan said during the campaign.
But given the election results, the Turkish president may be tempted to renew the alliance, some experts say.
The writer is from Agence France-Presse