Ruling AKP to prepare report on performance of CHP metropolitan mayors

Duvar English

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is going to prepare a report to understand the success of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in the 2019 municipality elections.

Within this framework, AKP group deputy chairs of several municipal councils held a general meeting in the capital Ankara, according to reporting by Türkiye newspaper. Following the meeting, AKP group deputy chair Mehmet Tevfik Göksü for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality made a statement on behalf of the party, claiming that 11 CHP metropolitan mayors were issuing "declarations of excuses and incompetence" instead of appearing with their projects before the public. 

AKP executives will now head to the Aegean province of İzmir on July 25 to determine what the CHP mayors had vowed to do as part of their 2019 election campaigns and how many of these promises had been actualized. The AKP will analyze what kind of projects the CHP municipalities have so far initiated with regards to the complaints of citizens. The ruling party will also hold similar evaluation meetings in Ankara and Adana and then share its report with the public.

“We held a general meeting in Ankara in the past few days. And now, we will start these meetings firstly in İzmir. We will expose how many of their promises the CHP municipalities have so far actualized, how many they have not. We will then share this with the public,” an AKP executive told Türkiye newspaper.

“But we see that although approximately four years have passed by since the [2019 local] elections, they have not done anything. Our people will also see this. Our work will show if they have kept their promises. We will leave the work's results to citizens' appreciation,” the executive reportedly said.

The 2019 municipal elections had surprising consequences for both the incumbent and opposition actors in Turkey. The CHP won both Ankara and Istanbul for the first time in 25 years and swept the coastal provinces of the west and south. Furthermore, with the elections, the AKP's political and electoral survival has come under question for the first time in years.