Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday presented his candidate for the March 31 municipal elections in Ankara, who has a difficult mission to take back the Turkish capital, which fell into the hands of the opposition in 2019, France Presse and Agerpres reported..

Turgut Altinok, the current mayor of Kecioren, one of Ankara’s most populous districts, will defend President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP, Islamic conservative) against popular incumbent mayor Mansur Yavas, a member of the main opposition party (CHP, social democratic).

The two 60-year-olds share a far-right past: both were members of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), an ally of President Erdogan since 2018.

Mansur Yavas, one of Turkey’s most popular politicians, is being praised for his performance in 2019 as Ankara’s leader.

The CHP also regained control of Istanbul that year, handing the AKP its most humiliating defeat since 2002. Turkey’s two largest cities have been in the hands of the AKP and its Islamist predecessors for 25 years.

Erdogan called opposition mayors “servants of imperialism and terrorism”

“Our country’s second party, the CHP, is acting as a servant of imperialism,” President Erdogan charged Thursday as he presented his party’s candidates in several major Turkish cities in Ankara.

“We will not only liberate our cities and provide them with adequate services, but we will also save them from these servants of imperialism and terrorism,” he insisted, echoing the rhetoric used in the last presidential election, which he won in late May.

The Turkish president, who has been in power since 2003, in early January commissioned Murat Kurum, one of his former environment ministers, to run in Istanbul’s March 31 municipal election against incumbent mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is seen as a potential candidate in the 2027 presidential election. year .