AK Party targets reclaiming Istanbul in Sunday’s local elections, after its 2019 defeat
Approximately 61 million voters will vote in Türkiye’s local elections to determine mayors and administrators in all 30 metropolitan areas and 1,351 districts nationwide on Sunday, March 31.
Recapturing Istanbul, the “jewel” of Türkiye, in Sunday’s local elections has become President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party)’s spotlight ever since losing the country’s economic capital to the opposition in 2019.
‘The jewel, the treasure’
“Are we ready to win back Istanbul?” he asked an enthusiastic crowd on a bus before his residence.
“Istanbul is the jewel, the treasure and the apple of our country’s eye,” he said at a rally in the city a week before the elections.
‘Whoever wins Istanbul wins Türkiye’
Istanbul’s mayoral vote is historically significant, and the city is considered, politically, the most important administrative region in the country.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party is, therefore, eager to recapture Türkiye’s biggest metropolitan and capital, Ankara, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) this March.
“We are preparing for elections where we have no choice but to win with a crushing landslide,” Erdogan said, adding: “Our goal is to bring back real municipalism to all cities, especially Istanbul and Ankara, that have been grappling with a lack of services for the past five years.”
For the first time in 25 years, the AK Party lost control of Istanbul, Ankara, and five megacities to the CHP in the last local elections of 2019.
“Whoever wins Istanbul wins Türkiye,” Erdogan himself once said.
A controversial rerun handed Istanbul to CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu, who now faces the risk of a political ban in an ongoing lawsuit. With his trial postponed to April 2024, the popular mayor is looking to run for a second term after leading a coup last month to replace CHP Chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu with his favored man, Ozgur Ozel.
Erdogan lamented Istanbul has fallen into disrepair under Imamoglu and begun exhausting its residents, citing CHP’s “failure to produce any works or even continue projects launched by the AK Party.”
The president said the AK Party is choosing its mayoral candidates through extensive voter satisfaction surveys and public opinion polls. He added discussions were underway with People’s Alliance partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to cooperate in major cities.
“The AK Party’s vision is always distinctive. We owe it to our citizens to choose our candidates with a mindset free of personal political clout-chasing. We will work day and night until the elections for this,” Erdogan said.
After the May polls, the AK Party refreshed cadres, replacing 52 provincial chairs and over 400 district chairs.
The party has been focused on the upcoming vote for over five months. It conducted surveys in big cities by opposition parties to determine citizens’ significant problems.
In Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, the most prominent issues were high living costs, transportation, irregular migration and infrastructure problems.
Last week, the party also held an online vote asking some 150,000 members their opinions on the tenures of current AK Party mayors.
Between Nov. 9 and Nov. 22, the party registered applications for potential mayor candidates, whose names will likely be announced in the first half of December, according to Deputy Chair Hamza Dag.
Erdogan has instructed his party to seek candidates with an excellent public image, “not candidates simply favored (by political lobbies).”
In Istanbul, the AK Party’s campaign will focus on urban transformation, an ambitious nationwide project to replace crumbling old buildings with new ones.
Istanbul is among the cities at imminent risk of earthquakes, and Türkiye has stepped up efforts to speed up the transformation project after the Feb. 6 earthquakes, which killed thousands in Türkiye’s southeast.
Who is Murat Kurum?
Local elections are underway across the nation as Türkiye’s ruling AK Party has officially announced its mayoral candidate for Istanbul.
In a campaign-style ceremony, President Erdogan announced Kurum, a member of parliament and former Minister of Environment and Urbanization, as the state’s favorite for one of the most prestigious seats in office at a municipal level.
Born in 1976 in Ankara, Kurum graduated from Selcuk University’s civil engineering department. He completed his master’s degree in urban transformation.
Between 1999 and 2018, Kurum worked in various private organizations, first as a specialist and later as a manager at TOKI Construction.
He was then promoted to General Manager (GM) and board member at Emlak Konut, the Turkish state’s housing wing.
Life took on a more serious tone when Kurum made a strategic move up in the world in 2018 when President Erdogan appointed him Minister of Environment and Urbanisation.
He ensures the construction of 365,000 housing units through the state’s affordable housing campaigns. He also builds 46,000 disaster housing units in cities where major earthquakes have rattled the nation recently.
He also initiated the construction of 484 national gardens across the country, 39 of which are in Istanbul.
Under Kurum’s tenure, Türkiye has accelerated its steps in the fight against climate change as it ratified the Paris Agreement in October 2021 and pledged to achieve net zero by 2053.
Source: Newsroom
