Parliamentary seats are up for grabs in May 14 elections, but candidates will now undergo a meticulous vetting process by their parties. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) announced late Thursday that their application window was closed and that a total of 6,025 people had applied for candidacy.

The number is lower than some 7,000 candidates who applied in the last parliamentary election but far ahead of those who applied to the AK Party’s main rival Republican People’s Party (CHP), which has received about 3,500 applications so far. Some 1,176 of the candidates who applied to the AK Party are women, according to the latest figures provided by the party.

Candidates will compete for 600 seats in the unicameral Parliament of Türkiye, which is formally known as the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM). But first, they need to move to the next step: approval of parties’ administrations. The candidate-picking process is often shrouded in mystery though loyalty to the party and political experience are among the main criteria. In other cases, parties themselves nominate candidates instead of in-person applications.

In the upcoming elections, the AK Party plans to field ministers as candidates from big cities. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also recently announced that Vice President Fuat Oktay will be nominated for Parliament from the capital Ankara. Erdoğan has formed a largely technocrat government and none of his ministers were members of Parliament as was the case in the past governments. But the AK Party plans to change this in the upcoming elections, particularly by nominating ministers from provinces hit by the Feb. 6 earthquakes in the country’s south. Ministers have been supervising search and rescue and recovery efforts on the ground since the first day of the disaster.

The AK Party has a three-term limit for lawmakers to run again, but the party sometimes eases the rule for certain lawmakers. It is unclear to whom the limit will be applied, but veteran names of the party did not apply for candidacy yet. These include former ministers who held key posts in the party and served in Parliament, from Taner Yıldız, a former minister of energy to Recep Akdağ, a former health minister. Overall, 42 AK Party lawmakers are subject to the three-term limit, but it will be up to the administration whether or not to approve their candidacy in the upcoming vote. Former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, who faces a three-term limit, is reportedly waiting for the approval of the party’s administration for applying for candidacy.

The CHP, which ended the application process on Thursday, saw veteran and key names in upper echelons of the party not applying, including central executive board members Bülent Kuşoğlu, Selin Sayek Böke, Onursal Adıgüzel, Ahmet Akın, Seyit Torun and Engin Özkoç. Party’s leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who is picked as the opposition bloc’s candidate against incumbent President Erdoğan, hinted that those names can be appointed as ministers if they win the elections. "We had a verbal agreement with other parties in the alliance that ministers should not have parliamentary seats," he told the broadcaster Halk TV earlier this week.

Ali İhsan Yavuz, deputy chair of the AK Party in charge of the party’s electoral affairs, said they also completed the "alliance protocol" of their People’s Alliance, which formally includes the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Great Union Party (BBP). The protocol will be an official display of the alliance for elections.

Yavuz said they had 14 subcommittees in the party evaluating the candidates and a supreme committee chaired by Erdoğan will have the final say on the eligible candidates. Parties are required to deliver their candidate list to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) within weeks. Yavuz said they would present the final list on April 9.

He added that the reports of ministers to be nominated for parliamentary elections appeared "true," pointing out that it was the party administration that will make the ultimate decision. He said ministers do not have to quit their jobs for nominations under new amendments to the Constitution.

The AK Party received the most applications from the Marmara region, Türkiye’s most crowded area that includes its most populated city, Istanbul. More than 2,000 people sought to run for seats in constituencies in the region. It is followed by the Central Anatolian region, where the capital is located. More than 1,050 people sought to run for Parliament in the region for the AK Party. The majority of candidates are above the age of 30, according to figures provided by the party, which saw only 159 women between the ages of 18 and 30 apply for candidacy and 403 men.

The candidates are a diverse bunch, from journalists and singers to the barber of lawmakers.

Dilek Ertürk, who was Türkiye’s first visually impaired diplomat, is among them. Ertürk, who was appointed to the board of Türkiye’s Human Rights and Equality Institution (TİHEK) by President Erdoğan in 2017, seeks to serve as a lawmaker from the AK Party. Ertürk told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Friday that her primary purpose in politics was changing the public perception of people with disabilities. "I also want other people with disabilities to see themselves not as individuals that life treats unfairly but rather as people who can contribute to this country. In my political career, I will do everything to ensure equality and support people with disabilities through affirmative action. It is crucial to have people with disabilities in decision-making mechanisms," she said.

"People with disabilities should not be isolated from society. But, to overcome the disabilities, they should overcome prejudice in society. People with disabilities are as productive as others. I want to motivate people I share the same fate and instill in them self-confidence," she said.

Mümtaz Arslan, who has run the hairdresser at Parliament for the past 20 years, aims to solve the problems of small businesses like barbershops if elected. Arslan applied to the AK Party for candidacy, whose lawmakers have been among his customers, along with former presidents and prime ministers, from Bülent Ecevit and Süleyman Demirel to Necmettin Erbakan. Indeed, his foray into politics began with membership in the Welfare Party (RP) of Necmettin Erbakan before he switched to the AK Party. "I worked in neighborhood branches of the party and undertook several duties over the years, whatever Erbakan hodja assigned us to," he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) on Friday, referring to the nickname of Erbakan, who was also a political mentor of Erdoğan. "Being a barber also means you live with politics," Arslan said. In Türkiye, barbershops are as popular hangouts as coffeehouses for men, where barbers bond with their regular patrons over talks on everything from politics to sports and the economy.

Presidential candidates

The process is also underway for presidential candidates who require collecting 100,000 signatures to be nominated. The YSK set Monday evening as the deadline for candidates who will be nominated by their supporters. This includes 11 names who rally their supporters to present their signatures to the offices of the YSK in Ankara.

The signature collecting process began two days ago and gained momentum on Friday with more people applying. Yet, candidates have appeared to see disappointing results so far, like for Ahmet Özal.

The son of former Prime Minister and President Turgut Özal was nominated by the Türkiye Alliance of small parties, including his own Technological Development Party. Özal has claimed their total vote was around 25%. Yet, in two days, he was able to collect only 567 signatures.

Muharrem Ince of the Homeland Party, who was the main rival of President Erdoğan in the 2018 elections when he was nominated by the CHP, collected more than 51,000 signatures in two days. Fatih Erbakan, son of former Prime Minister Erbakan trails behind him with 46,725 signatures. Fatih Erbakan was offered a chance to join the People’s Alliance, but he declined and decided to run for the Presidency himself. Sinan Oğan, who is nominated by a far-right alliance, collected nearly 26,000 signatures so far. The academic, who was expelled from the MHP in 2015, is a replacement for Ümit Özdağ, leader of the far-right Victory Party who was anticipated to run for the Presidency or nominate Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş but changed his mind and endorsed Oğan. Oğan and his alliance’s main election policy focus on expelling Syrian refugees and migrants from Türkiye if they win.

Doğu Perinçek, leader of the Patriotic Party known for its "Eurasian" stance that advocates Türkiye’s alignment with Russia and China and severs ties with the "imperialist" West, collected 11,792 signatures so far. Erkan Trükten, an author perpetuating conspiracy theories online who found widespread support online with his anti-vaccination campaigns during the COVID-19 pandemic, has garnered 755 signatures so far.

Each candidate nominated by their voters is required to pay at least TL 555,000 ($29,000), but if they succeed to garner enough signatures, they are refunded. If they fail, their payment is transferred to the state’s coffers. The final list of presidential candidates will be announced in Official Gazette on March 31.