A party official said 2.3 million attendants of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will be on duty during the March 31 local elections on Sunday.
AK Party election coordination centers head Ahmet Özdemir told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the party formed coordination centers in all provinces and districts and that chairpersons management boards were appointed to these.
Özdemir said the centers were established in AK Party provincial buildings in 57 provinces and detached places in 24 provinces. He added that centers were even formed in some towns, especially those that have a population above 2,000.
"These centers primarily create an inventory of the groups that need to be reached, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), neighborhoods, mukhtars, retirees, the elderly, young people and disadvantaged groups in that province," he said.
He added that these centers prepare for the candidate so that programs on where and when the candidate needs to go and what he needs to speak about are ready beforehand.
"When our candidates all over Türkiye are announced, they will go to the field and carry out the daily programs we have planned. Thus, our candidate will have visited the entire field. They will also reach the masses of people in that province, such as those from the Black Sea, southeastern regions, Turks, Kurds, Circassians and Laz people. In other words, we are preparing an election program in which the map of that city will be completely processed," Özdemir said further.
Speaking on works regarding ballot boxes on election day, Özdemir said that there are around 200,000 boxes.
"We will have approximately five attendants for each of these 200,000 ballot boxes. So this makes 1 million people. Together with these 1 million people, a large number of trained people will be waiting to collect data from them or to intervene when intervention is necessary. That is 1 million people who will intervene when there is a problem and provide data flow when there is not. We also have a legal team. We will have a team of around 300,000 people who can apply for technical support," he outlined
As Türkiye approaches the March 31 municipal elections in which control of Türkiye's main cities will be up for grabs, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced earlier this month his party's candidates for more than two dozen of the country's municipalities and was expected to announce its candidates for the others, including the capital Ankara, on Sunday.
However, the meeting, which was planned to take place at ATO Congresium in Ankara, was canceled due to the attack on Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq.
The announcement program is expected to be delayed to later this month when the party could also make its election declaration public. Erdoğan entrusted a former environment minister, Murat Kurum, to run for mayor of Istanbul, while current Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu will run for the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
Last May, Erdoğan won reelection as president while his AK Party and its nationalist allies took a majority in parliamentary elections, illustrating the challenge faced by the opposition in the nationwide municipal elections.