With its local polls victory on Sunday March 31, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won a national election for the first time since 1977. The secular party received 37.7% of the vote, more than two percentage points more than President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), according to the preliminary official results. The AKP lost 11 cities that it controlled since the 2019 local elections. Its performance in the largest five cities—namely, Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Antalya—was very poor. Also surprisingly bad for th…