Erdoğan orders broad reshuffle at ruling party after March vote

PRESIDENT Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reportedly instructed his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to make sweeping changes after the party suffered its first loss since 2001 in the March 31 local elections.

The president convened the party’s central decision-making and administrative committee on Thursday to investigate the results of the mayoral elections, the loss of votes in previously held constituencies, and the low turnout.

On March 31, the AK Party won 74 mayoral seats, including 28 metropolitan cities, but it ceded 14 of the 22 cities it won in the 2019 elections to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Although the AK Party has won 54.3% of all metropolitan and district mayoral posts across Türkiye’s 81 provinces thanks to its alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the CHP won 35 of Türkiye’s 81 provincial capitals, including Istanbul and Ankara, managing to take the lead in polls for the first time in decades.

“We will conduct an intraparty reshuffle and make the necessary changes in our structure,” Erdoğan told his lawmakers, Turkish media reported yesterday.

He said the annual AK Party congress slated for later this year will be an opportunity for internal rejuvenation.

Sources close to the party have said the executive roles could also change before Congress.

Erdoğan lamented the AK Party voters’ notable abstention on March 31, the reason for which he said “must be unearthed at once because other problems will persist.”

Erdoğan also assured the party would stick to its current economy program while implementing necessary measures and introducing tightened cautions, particularly against exorbitant price hikes.

Earlier on Wednesday, he vowed the AK Party would “correctly read the message of Turkish people who undoubtedly asked us to do a comprehensive, sincere and bold self-criticism on March 31.”

According to preliminary surveys from the parties so far, economic conditions, fatigue from back-to-back elections and dissatisfaction with mayoral candidates were the main causes of voter abstention.

The AK Party is looking to run comprehensive field surveys on said causes in its strongholds and in cities where CHP lost mayoral seats, with a program entitled “We are Listening to Türkiye.”

The program will help the party draft a new roadmap for the next elections and involve establishing committees to analyze the election results.