ANKARA — The mayor of Izmir, a bastion of its secular opposition, joined President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Wednesday.
Cemil Tugay, elected mayor in 2024 as a candidate of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) before quitting in June, formally joined the AKP at a ceremony in Ankara, handing Erdogan’s party the mayoralty of a city it has never managed to win at the ballot box.
The move was a huge symbolic victory for the Turkish leader, who has long wanted to control the secular resort city of 4.5 million people on Turkey’s Aegean coast.
“I have no doubt that, with harmony between the local administration and central government, we will achieve great things,” Tugay said.
The religiously and socially conservative AKP, founded by Erdogan in 2001, has never won the Izmir metropolitan municipality despite dominating national politics for more than two decades.
Tugay won the March 2024 election with 49 percent of the vote, against 37 percent for the AKP candidate. The CHP also won 28 of Izmir’s 30 district municipalities.
Tugay’s decision to join the Islamic-rooted AKP was announced by Erdogan at a meeting where he personally welcomed the mayor in a party-like atmosphere broadcast live on TV.
The scene sparked anger in Izmir, where police barricaded the main squares ahead of an evening protest.
As night fell, a crowd waving Turkish flags gathered by the barriers around Cumhuriyet Square, chanting “Tugay, resign!” and “Tugay, the traitor!” They were watched by riot police and at least four water cannon trucks.
Some demonstrators carried a makeshift coffin emblazoned with the words: “Politically dead,” referring to Tugay’s political career.
“This is a bad day for Izmir … Taking votes from the people then breaking away like this is irresponsible,” said 60-year-old Melihat Aggul Ozdogan.
“We don’t want a mayor we did not choose. When we elected Tugay, we voted for a party,” added another protester Yasemin Koseer, 51.
“We do not want AKP to impose its rule on Izmir. People across the country have had enough of the government.”
Addressing the crowds, Cagatay Guc, head of the Izmir branch of the main opposition Yeni party, challenged Tugay.
“You have been dismissed, Cemil Tugay, you are not the mayor. You sit there with the votes of the nation, but today this nation has removed you from that position,” he said.
“Today you are a big zero in the eyes of the nation.”
Police repeatedly warned protesters to disperse. While a small group was briefly chased by officers, the protesters eventually dispersed peacefully.
Taking the mayorship of Izmir, which has been governed by opposition social democrats since 1999, is a major coup for Erdogan.
But it does not mean the AKP now controls the city’s opposition-dominated municipal council.
Around a dozen cultural figures resigned in protest, among them the artistic director of Izmir’s theaters, nine from the municipal theater advisory board and a poet who runs the Izmir International Literature Festival, BirGun newspaper said.
The defection comes as Turkey’s opposition battles an increasing crackdown, with a barrage of arrests and lawsuits targeting mayors and elected officials widely seen as political.
It began about six months after the Republican People’s Party (CHP) — at the time the main opposition force — won a resounding victory in the March 2024 local elections, trouncing the AKP.
Since then, six of the party’s provincial mayors have been arrested, including Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, and 29 of its district mayors, 13 of them in Istanbul, independent news website Diken said.
And at least 17 opposition mayors have switched to the AKP.
Tugay resigned from CHP in June this year after its leadership was replaced in a controversial court ruling.
Forced out of the party he led, Ozgur Ozel left and set up Yeni Parti, effectively replacing the CHP as Turkey’s main opposition.
But Tugay did not follow Ozel, saying he would remain independent and sparking rumors he planned to defect.
Erdogan’s AKP suffered a major electoral blow in the March 2024 mayoral elections but since then Turkish authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on opposition municipalities that saw many mayors targeted with corruption charges that critics say are unfounded.
Dozens of mayors, including Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is seen as Erdogan’s main rival, are in jail pending trial. Tunc Soyer, who was the Izmir mayor before Tugay, is also among those jailed as part of a corruption probe.
The opposition has rejected the corruption accusations and says the investigations are politically motivated. The government says the judiciary is independent.
Source: Saudi Gazette