President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, head of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), is anticipated to reveal candidates of the party for municipal elections in March. On Thursday, the party's top cadres and supporters will convene in the capital for a ceremony where candidates will be introduced. Among them would be the contenders for the capital currently ruled by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and the candidate for Izmir, Türkiye's third largest city, also a stronghold of the main opposition.
The party introduced former Minister Murat Kurum as the candidate for Türkiye's most populated city, Istanbul, on Jan.7, along with candidates for more than two dozen cities. Mayors for districts of 81 provinces are expected to be revealed at a later date while the party will not field candidates in some places where its main ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has a stronger showing. The MHP itself announced 55 more candidates for elections.
The AK Party lost control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in 25 years and some five megacities to the CHP in the last local elections of 2019.
The AK Party chooses its mayoral candidates through extensive voter satisfaction surveys and public opinion polls. Having refreshed cadres, replacing 52 provincial chairs and over 400 district chairs after last May's general elections, the AK Party has zeroed in on the upcoming vote. It ran surveys in big cities run by opposition parties to determine major problems citizens suffered. In Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, the most prominent issues were high living costs, transportation, irregular migration and infrastructure problems. Erdoğan has instructed his party to seek candidates with a good public image, "not candidates simply favored (by political lobbies)."
In Istanbul, the AK Party's campaign theme will be urban transformation, an ambitious nationwide project to replace crumbling old buildings with new ones. Istanbul is among the cities under imminent risk of earthquakes and Türkiye stepped up efforts to speed up the transformation project after the Feb. 6 quakes.
Voters in opposition-run municipalities mostly complain about the lack of municipal services, such as problems in water utility that lead to frequent water outages and traffic issues stemming from troubles in road construction and improvement of existing roads.
March 2024 is poised to be a critical test for the opposition parties, which were united under a coalition in 2019 that only fell apart after last May's defeat.
Despite new management, the CHP faces dwindling odds as its allies, such as the nationalist Good Party (IP), seek to field their own candidates.
On Jan.7, the AK Party mostly nominated incumbent mayors again, while in cities run by the opposition, the party either named candidates from district municipalities of big cities or lawmakers.
The election's credibility is among the priorities of parties. Some 2.3 million attendants of the AK Party will be on duty during the March 31 local elections. 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 chairpeople for 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, many trained people will be waiting to collect data from them or 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.
