President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has the highest number of members out of all the political parties in Türkiye in the 22nd year of its rule, according to an annual report from the Supreme Court.
A total of 141 political parties are active in Turkish politics, and the AK Party has 11,041,464 members, followed by its main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), which has 1,428,800 members and the Good Party (IP) with 508,578 members, official figures from the court’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office have shown.
Of all parties that have parliamentary groups, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the AK Party’s partner under the People’s Alliance, has 486,896 people registered, while some 10,353 people support the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
The YSP’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), however, has 19,855 members.
Ahead of May’s presidential and legislative elections, the HDP rebranded as the YSP to skirt a Constitutional Court lawsuit seeking its permanent closure over alleged links to the PKK terrorist group. After the opposition lost to Erdoğan and the People’s Alliance, the YSP then tried to change its name to DEM Party, but the request was rejected by the courts.
Other opposition parties with significant followings include the Democrat Party (DP) with 342,256 members, the Felicity Party (SP) with 243,312 members and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) with 145,820.
The AK Party allies the New Welfare Party (YRP) has 265,767 members while the Great Union Party (BBP) has 112,277 members.
Some 64 million eligible voters are set to elect mayors and local administrators in 81 provinces in March this year and only 36 of these parties will be permitted to compete in polls.
The AK Party is eager to recapture key cities, including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, both of which have been run by the CHP since it won a surprising victory in the 2019 elections for the first time in over two decades.
From political pundits to opponents, many thought that the AK Party, founded by former members of the Virtue Party (FP), would be short-lived when it set out its course in Turkish politics in 2002.
Erdoğan himself was considered a fad in politics when he unexpectedly won the mayor’s seat in the Istanbul municipality elections. Today, both the party and Erdoğan (first as prime minister and then as president) are viewed as the most enduring forces in the brief history of the republic.
The party, which has never lost a general election, celebrated the 22nd anniversary of its foundation on Aug. 24.
It’s commended for ending the era of a coalition government in the Republic of Türkiye and credited with scaling back the powerful military influence on politics, transforming the army into a regular defense force concentrated on battling security threats instead.