Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is rolling up its sleeves to draw a road map of strategies to promote provincial sociology for the local elections in March 2024.
The party’s strategic committee is assembling for the first time since the Eid holiday. It will examine the results of its voter satisfaction surveys in five cities, including Istanbul, where it saw its support drop in May’s presidential and parliamentary elections. It will also draft a comprehensive road map to determine every detail, including the election declaration and campaign music.
The final approval for the document will be given by the AK Party's chairperson, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has reiterated that the AK Party must go into the “Century of Türkiye” with a “strong and dynamic team.”
The "Century of Türkiye" encapsulates an ambitious set of political, economic, social and cultural innovations and developments Erdoğan’s government aims to accomplish to celebrate Türkiye’s centenary as a republic.
The local election road map will reportedly focus on projects to promote the sociology of each city and produce an exclusive theme song for Istanbul to remind voters of Erdoğan’s transformative services and key reforms he implemented after he was first elected as the city’s mayor in 1994.
Politically, Istanbul is seen as the most important administrative region in Türkiye and carries symbolic significance for Erdoğan since his time as mayor served as a launchpad for the foundation of the AK Party in 2001 and their subsequent election in 2003.
In the 2019 local elections, however, the AK Party lost control of Istanbul and the capital Ankara for the first time in 25 years, as well as five of Türkiye’s largest cities, to its main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
The loss was considered a blow to the AK Party’s popularity as the opposition characterized it as the “beginning of the end for Erdoğan.” Still, both the president and his party came out victorious in the May elections, dealing another defeat to the CHP and its leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The ruling party’s primary objective now is to rekindle lost support in some 39 constituencies of Istanbul where Erdoğan said his party must “conquer the hearts of everyone and launch a rebirth of municipalism.”
The party will also work to prepare separate declarations suitable for the needs, demands and deficits, the local fabric of each of the 81 provinces before next year’s mayoral race.
Additionally, the party is preparing for its eighth major congress scheduled in September, where party leaders and governing bodies will be determined.
Before that, the delegates are readying to kick off parliamentary efforts to fulfill the promises Erdoğan has made during the campaigning period, particularly ones made for youths, like one-time-only consumption tax discounts on first purchases of mobile phones, tablets and computers, as well as free mobile data.
Erdoğan also assured a family and youth bank would be established to finance housewives and struggling students. The party will work to establish legal groundwork at Parliament to award interest-free TL 150,000 ($5,755) loans to newlyweds.
