Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced today during a meeting with his AKP party‘s provincial delegates that all the party’s efforts are being focused on regaining the metropolitan municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara – the country’s two largest cities – which the AKP lost in Turkey’s 2019 municipal elections.
“We are preparing for the elections, in which we have no choice but to win. Istanbul will again be one of the main slogans of our battle,” Erdoğan said, speaking about the upcoming local elections, scheduled in Turkey for the end of March next year, in which the AKP will contest the polls in coalition with its nationalist MHP allies. “Our negotiations with the MHP continue positively on the basis of mutual understanding and respect,” he said.
During his speech, Erdoğan had harsh criticism for the management of the Istanbul and Ankara city councils since the main Turkish opposition party, the CHP, took over the metropolitan municipalities of both cities almost five years ago, and where according to the Turkish president, the CHP “has not even been able to finish the projects started under the AKP”. “Our aim is to bring real local management to our cities, especially Istanbul and Ankara, which have been drowning in a vortex of lack of services for five years“, and where “opposition municipalities are unable to provide infrastructure”. “We will show our nation that long years in power do not spoil us: on the contrary, they give us experience,” Erdoğan said.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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