Türkiye’s ruling People’s Alliance will strive for concrete results in every constituency it’s cooperating in for the upcoming local elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Wednesday.
“The opposition has no concerns about serving our nation; they cannot find the time from their internal feuds,” Erdoğan told a rally in Ankara as he announced the mayoral candidates for the capital’s 25 districts.
The president’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is relying on Turgut Altınok, a veteran mayor who long ran the working-class Keçiören district and cultivated wide public support, in the upcoming municipal polls against his main rival Mansur Yavaş, who runs for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Erdoğan named Zafer Çoktan, a local who has served in AK Party’s city council, for Keçiören and Duhan Kalkan, an incumbent municipality mayor in the city, for the Çankaya district.
For the metropolitan Etimesgut district, the party is re-nominating incumbent mayor Enver Demirel, with the endorsement of its partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The allies are running joint candidates in a total of five Ankara districts in the upcoming vote.
“With Altınok’s projects, Ankara will enter its golden era,” Erdoğan told the cheering crowd.
“The negligence our cities faced is plain as day. Our people will hold accountable those who boasted of never having accomplished a major project for their cities on March 31,” he added.
The AK Party is trying to win back control of the main cities from the CHP after unprecedented defeats in the 2019 elections. The CHP rose to power in Istanbul and Ankara in the 2019 elections, puncturing the aura of political invincibility the AK Party garnered for over two decades, thanks to overwhelming public support.
Erdoğan has set himself the goal of winning back both cities along with opposition-held Izmir after securing reelection last year for a five-year term as president.
The party has already announced candidates for mayors of all big cities, including Istanbul. Former Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum will challenge CHP’s incumbent Ekrem Imamoğlu for Türkiye’s most populated city.
Earlier this month, the party also rolled out the candidates for 39 Istanbul districts, which AK Party says is vital for the integrated approach they seek for the city’s administration.
Candidates announced so far are a mix of reliable names, successful incumbent mayors, senior officials of the party and former ministers.
Municipal elections in March will be a litmus test for the party to measure the public support for cities’ administrations it controlled for years.
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