Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is set to start shaping its candidate list in November for the upcoming local elections scheduled for March, a party official said.
Applications for mayoral candidates will open after the party convenes its extraordinary council on Oct. 7 as it concentrates on campaign strategies, Deputy Chair Hamza Dağ told a Turkish broadcaster on Wednesday.
“We have no trouble choosing candidates. While our rivals are too busy with debates on change, we’re taking action for the elections,” Dağ argued, referring to the ongoing power struggle in the main opposition’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) between its current chairperson, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and most popular figure Ekrem Imamoğlu, Istanbul’s current mayor who is facing reelection in roughly seven months.
Dağ emphasized the AK Party’s “qualified” success in producing lawmakers from ministers of previous terms and decking the Cabinet with its own members. He was also confident the party was “more than capable of raising candidates well above and beyond the opposition’s.”
The upcoming polls will be a test for CHP municipalities, the way presidential and parliamentary elections in May were another, Dağ further argued.
Municipalities that govern more than 50% of the population, namely Türkiye’s top metropolitans Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, are under CHP management, Dağ pointed out. “They failed their first test in May. In March 2024, these mayors will see what they have accomplished in the past five years. Their records are very weak and citizens will make them face these records in March 2023,” he said.
The AK Party’s primary goal is to regain the mayoral offices of these cities, as well as Mersin, Adana and Antalya, from the CHP. In constituencies like Izmir, Kadıköy and Çankaya, historically CHP strongholds, the party aims for a serious spike in voter support.
To that end, the AK Party is working on a rundown of the activities of every CHP municipality, including towns and minor districts, to recap whether promises were kept. Officials said reports so far have shown the municipalities failed to deliver even 5%-10% of their pledges from 2019.
The election strategy will be implemented in four phases, Dağ informed.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been touring provinces hit by the deadly twin earthquakes in February to express gratitude for reelection in May. He is scheduled for more visits to four cities in the disaster zone. AK Party members, too, have been visiting various districts and neighborhoods with the highest support for the ruling party.
The purpose of the visits is also to report on the performances of the current municipal administration and public feedback to help shape electoral promises, as well as mayoral candidates. Once names are chosen, the campaign will kick off by the end of the year, according to Dağ.
The ruling party is also working on resolving Türkiye’s economic troubles, Dağ said. “But the coronavirus pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the devastating earthquakes should also be taken into light when discussing the economy. We are working around the clock to recover from these. There are problems, but citizens also see there is an ongoing effort to resolve these.”
The party has been conducting voter satisfaction surveys, especially in five cities where it saw its support drop in the May elections. The primary objective 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.”
Officials will be implementing an exclusive strategy in Istanbul, which is seen politically 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.
The ruling party lost control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in 25 years, as well as five of Türkiye’s largest cities, to the CHP in the 2019 elections, something the opposition characterized as a blow to the AK Party’s popularity – but both the president and his party came out victorious in May.
Another major loss seems on the horizon for the opposition as it struggles to maintain its Nation Alliance that won Imamoğlu his seat in 2019 after their latest defeat threw the six-party bloc into disarray, particularly between its two biggest members – CHP and the Good Party (IP).
Already lukewarm from various ideological disagreements, including Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential nomination and the disappointing 40 parliamentary seats they won in May, the relations between the two parties have been threatening to fall apart.
An IP member close to the party's Chairperson Meral Akşener on Thursday said the party was neither searching for nor offering an alliance at the moment, effectively confirming rumors that the parties will be fielding separate and rival candidates and complicating the odds of the CHP retaining key municipalities.
Pundits have said the split was Akşener’s way of being “cautious.”
