Dersim's communist mayor to run for Istanbul’s Kadıköy in local elections

Duygu Kıt / Gazete Duvar

Turkey's first mayor from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), eastern Dersim Mayor Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu, will be a mayoral candidate for Istanbul’s Kadıköy district in the local elections to be held on March 31, 2024.

The Federation of Socialist Assemblies announced Maçoğlu’s candidacy on Jan. 5.

In a statement, the federation said they felt responsible for spreading the positive impact of “our transparent, democratic, populist local governments program created by the masses under the ‘Communist Mayor’ (Maçoğlu) to the whole country for the common benefit of our peoples.”

“In this sense, as a result of our consultations with democratic, left-socialist organizations, we have decided that our comrade Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu will enter the local elections as a joint candidate of democratic, left-socialist forces under the TKP umbrella party in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul,” it added.

55-year-old Maçoğlu first became Dersim’s Ovacık district mayor in 2014. After his success in the district, he was elected as Dersim Mayor from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) in the 2019 local elections.

Kadıköy Mayor Şerdil Dara Odabaşı, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), received 65.99 percent of the votes in the 2019 local elections.

(English version by Alperen Şen)