Manisa: How CHP took an MHP stronghold and plans to keep it

Manisa Mayor Ferdi Zeyrek and CHP head Özgür Özel pictured in April. © CHP

MANİSA — Turkey’s youngest metropolitan mayor, Ferdi Zeyrek, said his biggest strength in this year’s local elections was his opponent’s weakness.

"The former mayor was a dictator," Zeyrek told Turkey recap.

As the new, 47-year-old mayor of Manisa, he alleged his predecessor, Cengiz Ergün of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), had become “out of touch” with voters and was plagued by accusations of corruption.

Such messaging helped Zeyrek claim the mayorship in March, placing Manisa under the Republican People’s Party (CHP) control for the first time since Turkey became a multi-party democracy.

The fact CHP chair Özgür Özel is from Manisa likely helped his campaign, Zeyrek noted, though party insiders and local residents credit his electoral win to growing discontent with the status quo and the resulting thirst for new leadership.

"What I'm trying to implement here is what I expected when I looked at this [municipality] building from the outside a few months ago," Zeyrek said during a mid-July interview in the new mayor’s office.

The fifth-floor workspace has a clear view of Mount Spil, also known as Mount Sipylus, which for centuries has drawn the gaze of past emperors and pensive Ottoman sultans, many of whom were educated in Manisa.

“We reopened the doors of this building to the public, and I am listening to their problems and trying to solve them,” Zeyrek continued, speaking with enthusiasm about his plans, some of which he announced today.

Located at the center of Turkey’s Aegean region and away from the more liberal coastline, Manisa has a long history of supporting right-wing parties. In interviews with Turkey recap, many residents defined their city as “nationalist” and “conservative to some extent”.

Prior to 2019, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and MHP joined forces in local elections, the two parties' combined vote share in the province was about 75 percent. Before that, the AKP won local elections in 2004, the MHP's Ergün claimed the mayorship in 2009 and then held onto the metropolitan mayorship from 2014-2024.

In this context, Zeyrek collected about 57.3 percent of the vote this spring, marking one of many unexpected outcomes in the 2024 local elections. The incumbent Ergün, meanwhile, held on to slightly more than half of his previous vote share, or about 29.8 percent.

Along with the metropolitan municipality, CHP candidates claimed 14 of Manisa’s 17 districts, signaling a deep shift in a province where many long-time supporters of the AKP-MHP alliance told Turkey recap they had become fed up with Ergün.

Discontent and alleged corruption