President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday blasted the main opposition’s Republican People's Party (CHP) for failing to serve its stronghold, the western coast city of Izmir, during the past two decades its mayors have governed it and said his ruling party would compensate for Izmir’s "lost years" after the high-stakes local elections on March 31.

Erdoğan was addressing a rally of some staggering 100,000 Justice and Development Party (AK Party) supporters in Izmir's Gündoğdu Square, where CHP mayors have ruled without break since 2004, making it a stronghold for the opposition.

Touting the high turnout, the Turkish president vowed to "rescue" Izmir from CHP’s "poor services" and assured his party would readily fill in investment gaps and restore welfare in the city.

"Izmir will have a beautiful new reality on the eve of March 31," Erdoğan told the cheering crowd, lamenting that the city was "left behind because of CHP while the rest of Türkiye made leaps in development."

He further pointed out internal disarray in the CHP and slammed Chair Özgür Özel’s "secret" alliance with the Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and a successor of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) broadly known for its ties to the PKK terrorist group.

CHP is being accused of clandestinely divvying up mayoral districts for YSP candidates in metropolitan Istanbul in exchange for YSP’s indirect endorsement of its incumbent mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu in upcoming polls, despite YSP nominating its own mayoral candidate against Imamoğlu.

Erdoğan accused the CHP of doing "dirty" politics and criticized it for "deeming such an alliance proper for its voters."

He also mocked Özel’s seeming lack of authority over his own members and accused "certain CHP people of overshadowing him" in a thinly veiled reference to Imamoğlu’s constant intervention in Özel’s management.

Özel, who was voted in as CHP chair after the opposition lost in last year’s general elections with Imamoğlu’s backing, pledged "change" in the party but he has since been accused of derailing the democratic process of picking candidates for municipal elections, while Imamoğlu, who raised his profile in the party after winning the 2019 elections, reportedly has a hand in choosing candidates. The internal turmoil highlights a risk of losing all public favor in the CHP if it loses another key vote later this month, frustrating supporters already fed-up with back-to-back election defeats.

Özel is also lambasted by his own members for failing to prevent a distrust among voters and allowing cracks to deepen in Türkiye’s oldest party, founded by the Turkish republic’s founder and first President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923.

"Mr. Özel has become a scapegoat for his party," Erdoğan said and added: "But, unlike the CHP, we offer no contempt or hypocrisy. We offer politics of service. Our candidates are set and we are proud to introduce them to you on this stage."

"We will not leave Izmir to CHP mentality that has only masqueraded as keepers of Atatürk’s politics," Erdoğan assured.

The municipal elections are a significant test for the government and the opposition. Thirty-four political parties will vie for votes in 81 provinces.

Almost all parties unveiled their candidates for mayor and municipal assembly seats, but the Supreme Election Board (YSK) declared the final list last week. A campaign ban will come into force on March 21.

More than 61 million people are eligible to vote, and 1 million young voters will cast their ballots for the first time in this election. More than 50% of the voters are women, while men make up 49.1% of the electorate, according to the statistics. More than 3.3 million of voters are aged 75 and above. Most of the electorate is in 30 big cities, while more than 13.5 million voters will cast their ballots in 51 other cities.

Voters in opposition-run municipalities mostly complain about the lack of municipal services, such as problems in water utilities that lead to frequent water outages and traffic issues stemming from troubles in road construction and improvement of existing roads.