The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is obliged to realize and fix its mistakes to strengthen its ties with the Turkish people, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said after chairing the party’s first Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting following the March 31 local elections on Tuesday.

Focusing on the election’s results, the meeting concluded that the ruling party, which lost an election for the first time since 2001, would identify its shortcomings in order not to pay a higher price and become a party similar to the ones that it criticizes, sources said.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won an election for the first time in four decades, by winning 35 municipalities, including 14 metropolitan municipalities.

In comparison to the 2019 local polls, AK Party lost the number of municipalities it governs, as well as the votes it received in the March 31 elections.

The MYK meeting, which took four hours, focused on an in-depth analysis of the elections and discussed why most AK Party voters chose not to vote, which was evident in the lower turnout. Apart from losses for the AK Party, the highlight of this election is lower voter turnout, around 78.1%, compared to 84.6% in the 2019 municipal election and more than 84% in the second round of presidential elections last May. As some political pundits claimed, it is uncertain whether voter apathy linked to the same parties winning all the time played a role in low turnout.

The president noted that the party headquarters, the organization and the candidates all had an equal share in the election outcome and that they would extensively evaluate all processes leading up to the polls, including the steps to determine candidates.

The sources also pointed to the current state of the economy and the high cost of living, which especially surged after the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine War, and that the living conditions of various segments of the society, including seniors who live on pensions, have deteriorated.

The MYK meeting also touched on the complaints submitted by citizens about the party administration, provincial, district party organizations, mayors, lawmakers and other members of the party and the ways to overcome these problems.

Sources noted that President Erdoğan said the AK Party would never put up a wall between itself and the people, and that such a stance would be its biggest enemy and that the party would not shy away from holding any party members accountable for their acts.

The party executives will also hold a meeting to evaluate the election results in Amasya, Kütahya and Kırıkkale provinces, where the People’s Alliance, which consists of the AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) nominated separate candidates instead of a single one and lost to CHP, when they could have won if they had a single unified candidate like they did in other cities.

In his first speech, after the initial unofficial election results were made public, Erdoğan acknowledged the failure to achieve success while hailing what he called the victory of democracy. Addressing a crowd gathered outside AK Party headquarters in the capital, Ankara, Erdoğan stated that the nation exhibited its will in the ballots without encountering any restraints and that it was a major gain for Turkish democracy. "The victor of this election is democracy, the nation's will, regardless of political views of the electorate," he said.