Towards a new left-populist rhetoric in Turkey: Discourse analysis of İmamoğlu’s campaign

Abstract

This chapter aims to show the potential of left-populism to overcome polarisation created by the authoritarian populist politics, based on a field study of Turkish local elections in 2019. In an extremely polarised political climate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the candidate of the CHP, the main opposition party in Turkey, won the local elections on 23 June 2019, and has become the new Mayor of Istanbul by defeating the ruling party AKP who lost control of Istanbul for the first time since 1994. We argue that his election campaign provided important clues on how to fight authoritarian populist politics, and overcome political and social polarisation. İmamoğlu’s campaign matches the left-wing populism embracing inclusive, pluralist, and egalitarian discourses; democratic values; and social democrat projects. The unification of “the People” against polarisation, the politics of hope against politics of fear of the AKP, places an emphasis on democratic values and institutions; the recognition of subaltern identities created by neoliberal politics and the inclusion of various identities are the prominent populist discourses of his campaign. Our research methodology involved collecting campaign data from İmamoğlu’s social media accounts and conducting discourse analysis based on the data collected. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Marta Pérez-Escolar and José Manuel Noguera-Vivo; individual chapters, the contributors.