Izmir Mayor Cemil Tugay joins Erdoğan’s party — Cyprus Mail

Cemil Tugay, the mayor of Izmir in Turkey, who was elected in 2024 as a candidate of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has joined the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The party admission ceremony took place in Ankara, Cyprus Mail reports.

Izmir is Turkey’s third-largest city and is considered a stronghold of the secular social-democratic opposition. The AKP, founded by Erdoğan in 2001, has never won an election for mayor of the Izmir metropolitan municipality. Tugay’s switch gives the party control of the city hall without an electoral victory.

Results of the 2024 election

In the municipal elections in March 2024, Tugay won 49% of the vote, while the AKP candidate received 37%. The CHP also won in 28 of Izmir’s 30 district municipalities. Tugay left the CHP in June after a court ruling annulled the party’s 2023 congress and stripped Özgür Özel of his position as CHP leader. He then served as an independent mayor.

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Statements by the opposition and the president

CHP leader Özgür Özel said that the AKP had allegedly used blackmail and threats of imprisonment to persuade Tugay to switch. Erdoğan rejected these accusations, saying that people who want to work calmly for their cities consider the AKP the safest choice.

According to the publication, dozens of mayors, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and former Izmir Mayor Tunç Soyer, are in custody awaiting trial as part of corruption investigations. The opposition calls such cases politically motivated, while the Turkish government says the judiciary is independent. Tugay became the second mayor of a major city to switch from the CHP to the AKP, after Aydın Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu.