By Nazlan Ertan
“When good bureaucrats retire, they go to Istanbul,” quipped a Turkish diplomat at his farewell dinner several years ago. He was about to join the steady flow of ex-ambassadors and senior officials who settle comfortably into Istanbul’s glamorous private sector. While these bureaucrats enjoy Istanbul’s cosmopolitan delights and lucrative board positions, politicians with unsatisfied ambitions would do well to think twice. The graceful transition from bureaucracy-laden Ankara to Istanbul’s cultural and economic limelight might be liberating—but for politicians, it often signals the end of the line.
Take Abdullah Gül, who leads the parade of high-profile politicians who found themselves in Istanbul once their grip on Ankara slipped. Gül, the soft-spoken Number Two to Erdoğan at the founding of AKP, left the presidency in 2014 with considerable bitterness, feeling sidelined by Erdoğan and his team. Settling first in Tarabya’s Presidential Palace and then in a private villa in Beykoz, he became a figure whom former allies and even foes sought out for advice on new parties, and periodically as a possible challenger to Erdoğan. Yet, Gül never took the plunge, proving that the view from Istanbul is often one of wistful distance from real political clout.
Meral Akşener is the most recent high-profile figure to announce her move from Ankara back to Istanbul. After a rough election season that saw her İyi Party win only a single provincial municipality in 2024, Akşener resigned as party head, passing the mantle to Müsavat Dervişoğlu, whom she supported against her archrival Koray Aydın. Though Dervişoğlu showered Akşener with compliments as the “founder of the party,” the fallen she-wolf chose to migrate to Istanbul. Good news: President Erdoğan announced that he was dropping defamation charges against her.
Akşener’s move recalls her mentor, Turkey’s first and only female prime minister Tansu Çiller, who quietly relocated to Istanbul following her exit from politics. But Akşener’s situation remains ambiguous—she hasn’t declared herself out of politics, but the Istanbul move rarely helps those planning a serious return.
OLD GUARD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Then there’s the old guard—the types who would never abandon Ankara. Banned from politics in the 1980s, both Süleyman Demirel and Bülent Ecevit stayed in the capital, determined to stay close to the action. While younger Turks may have joked about these political figures, both Demirel and Ecevit returned to office, with Ecevit even serving as Turkey’s last PM before Erdoğan’s AKP came to power, and Demirel occupying both prime ministerial and presidential roles.
Similarly, the CHP’s wily former leader Deniz Baykal remained embedded in Ankara after resigning in 1999 when his party obtained no parliamentary seats in the elections. Though he returned to party leadership within a year when the CHP found itself in trouble, he wasn’t as lucky when he resigned over photo shoots that showed him in bed with his secretary in 2010. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, his seemingly unassuming Number Two, took the reins of the party right away and did not let go for the next 13 years, though Baykal tried several times for a comeback.
Today, it is Kılıçdaroğlu who has established an office in Ankara and is waiting in the wings in case his successor, Özgür Özel, stumbles.
Even the AKP’s estranged former ministers, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Ali Babacan, knew better than to leave the capital when forced out of their ministerial posts by Erdoğan. They stayed put and launched spin-off parties, however modest their vote shares may be. Political survival in Turkey means staying where politics lives—Ankara.
START AT BYZANCE
Istanbul can be a great springboard—for those just getting started. Erdoğan himself famously began his career as Istanbul’s mayor, building connections in business, media, and civil society that served him well when he set his sights on Ankara. Now, Istanbul’s current mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, is similarly leveraging his role in the country’s largest city to raise his profile nationally and internationally. Charismatic and quick-footed, CHP dynamo İmamoğlu embodies the city he leads, drawing on Istanbul’s mix of ancient allure and modern dynamism.
His counterpart in Ankara, Mansur Yavaş, takes a different approach, one that reflects Ankara’s sensible, workaday ethos. If İmamoğlu captures Istanbul’s energetic appeal and maps grand strategies, Yavaş is all about practicality and substance, building a reputation on straightforward governance without the glamor. Where İmamoğlu celebrates the grandeur of Istanbul and pledges to carry it even further, Yavaş grounds himself in the grit of Ankara, a place that prides itself on being the serious capital of the republic. It remains to be seen which of the two different men and styles - if either- will be tapped as the main opposition candidate for the next presidential elections.
Ultimately, Istanbul provides a stage for ambitious starters, but rarely a second act for those at the end of their careers. The ambitious who hope to return to power—well, they don’t stray too far from Ankara’s corridors, where influence may be quieter, but is all the more enduring.
