Turkiye’s ‘Communist mayor’ embarks on conquest of Istanbul district

ISTANBUL: Fatih Macoglu, the popular “Communist Mayor” of a city in eastern Turkiye, is now vying for control of a vibrant and hip Istanbul district along the Asian banks of the Bosphorus.

In 2019, he was elected mayor of Tunceli, a majority Kurdish Alevi city in eastern Anatolia known for being extremely secular and left-leaning.

During his five-year term, he won plaudits for knocking down the doors of his office as a form of transparency.

This time, in the March 31 elections, he is setting his sights on the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, a bastion of the secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The charismatic, moustached 55-year-old is standing as a candidate for the Communist Party of Turkiye (TKP), which has no seats in the national parliament.

In an interview with AFP during his election campaign in Kadikoy, Macoglu said his experience as mayor proved good governance was possible. “The world is getting worse and I believe the Socialists can reverse this trend,” he said.

“Socialists are competent to rule this country and this world.”

In 2019, Macoglu became the first Communist mayor of Tunceli, a city that was formerly known as Dersim and that has a turbulent history.

He took over a city council that had been run by the pro-Kurdish HDP party — until it was handed to a government-appointed trustee in the wake of a failed coup in 2016 that aimed to topple long-standing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Macoglu refused to use his official car and posted his council’s finances on a banner hanging on the front of his office building to show people how he spent their money.

He opened a cooperative to promote organic honey and chickpeas, whose sales funded university students from poor families, and provided free transport for students.

“I closely followed Macoglu’s successful practices. I was impressed by his honest approach to politics,” said Sevgi Celik, a 42-year-old resident of Kadikoy.