With less than three months remaining until Turkey’s local elections on March 31, the mayoral race in the country is shifting into high gear as political parties are announcing more of their candidates who will run in the elections.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday announced the names of his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) 48 mayoral candidates including those for Ankara and İzmir, two major cities along with İstanbul that the AKP lost to the opposition in the watershed 2019 elections.
Erdoğan named Ankara’s incumbent Keçiören district mayor, Turgut Altınok, as his party’s candidate for the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, while AKP deputy chairman Hamza Dağ has been named the AKP mayoral candidate for İzmir.
Erdoğan made the announcements during a meeting at the ATO Congress and Exhibition Center in Ankara.
Murat Kurum, the party’s mayoral candidate for İstanbul, a former minister and current AKP lawmaker, was announced on January 7 at a meeting during which the names of mayoral candidates for 25 provinces were also made public.
The secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) gained control of İstanbul and Ankara for the first time in years in 2019, ending the years-long rule of the AKP and its predecessors in those cities.
In İzmir, known as Turkey’s secular heartland, the AKP has never won the metropolitan municipality against any CHP candidate since it was established in 2001.
The opposition’s control of Turkey’s three main cities shattered Erdoğan’s image of political invincibility and underscored the level of resentment against his dominant rule.
After he securing yet another term in the May presidential election, Erdoğan has since set his sights on winning the three big cities in the local elections.
Most analysts believe Erdoğan has a better chance of winning in İstanbul than he does Ankara.
Opinion polls consistently rank Ankara’s current mayor, Mansur Yavaş, as one of Turkey’s most popular politicians.
Yavaş appears to have benefitted from steering clear of national politics and developing a reputation as a man who can address Ankara’s local needs.
Altınok’s background is similar to that of Yavaş.
Both were former members of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) before breaking off into different camps.
With Thursday’s announcement, the AKP has announced all of its candidates for metropolitan municipalities and provinces except for seven provinces — Manisa, Mersin, Bartın, Erzincan, Kars, Kırklareli and Osmaniye — where the AKP will support the candidates of the MHP.
Meanwhile, Erdoğan did not renominate the incumbent mayors in four provinces — Maraş, Adıyaman, Malatya and Kilis — which were hit hardest by two powerful earthquakes last February in which more than 50,000 people were killed. The mayors faced accusations of disregarding safety guidelines when issuing building permits in their cities.
The AKP will also announce its candidates for district mayor beginning Saturday.
The MHP also announced 55 mayoral candidates in a written statement on Wednesday who include candidates for two provinces and 53 districts. Since the party is allying with the AKP, it will support the AKP candidates in the places where it has not nominated a candidate.
Although the AKP and the MHP have extended their alliance, which began in 2018, to the March 31 local elections, an opposition alliance led by the CHP broke up following the general election in May due to disagreements among the six parties that made up the opposition bloc.
Opposition parties such as the İYİ (Good) Party and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which was not included in the opposition bloc but whose supporters backed the CHP candidates in major cities in 2019, have announced their plans to avoid alliances and field their own candidates.
İYİ Party spokesperson Kürşad Zorlu said his party would announce its mayoral candidates for İstanbul and Ankara before the end of January.
Meral Akşener, the İYİ Party leader, announced her party’s mayoral candidates for Antalya, Giresun, Kocaeli, Kars and Kırklareli provinces at a party meeting on Wednesday.
If the İYİ Party nominates its own candidates for İstanbul and Ankara, this may reduce the chances of incumbent mayors Ekrem İmamoğlu and Yavaş for re-election.
DEM Party spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan said last week that her party would field mayoral candidates in seven provinces apart from the predominantly Kurdish provinces in eastern and southeastern Turkey. She said the DEM Party would nominate candidates for the Ankara, Antalya, Bolu, Konya, Kocaeli, Kayseri and Samsun municipalities.
The party’s efforts to name most of its candidates are still under way.
Doğan also said DEM Party and CHP officials are engaged in talks about possible cooperation for some municipalities but that no deal has yet been reached.