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Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Cemil Tugay’s move to Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) gives the party control of the metropolitan municipality for the first time, making him the 105th mayor to join its ranks since the March 2024 local elections.
Tugay, who was elected mayor as a Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate in March 2024, had been serving as an independent since resigning from the CHP on June 18.
President and AK Party Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented Tugay with his party badge during the AK Party’s Legislative Year Opening Meeting in Ankara on Oct. 7, formally marking his entry into the ruling party.
The move followed Tugay’s meeting with Erdogan at the presidential complex on Sept. 30. The presidency confirmed the meeting at the time but did not disclose its details. Tugay said after the meeting that he had briefed Erdogan on issues concerning Izmir and projects for the city’s future.
Tugay’s switch is particularly significant because of Izmir’s place in Türkiye’s electoral map. The AK Party, founded in 2001, has never won the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality at the ballot box.
Izmir is known as the country's secular stronghold, which was one of the historic centers of mass demonstrations, especially in the early 2010s.
In the March 31, 2024, local elections, Tugay won the metropolitan mayoralty for the CHP with 48.97%. AK Party candidate Hamza Dag finished second with 37.06%.
The CHP also won 28 of Izmir’s 30 district municipalities in the election.
Tugay later left the CHP amid a leadership crisis triggered by a court ruling that declared the party’s 2023 congress legally void, or "absolute nullity."
The ruling annulled the congress at which Ozgur Ozel had replaced Kemal Kilicdaroglu as chairman and reinstated Kilicdaroglu and the previous party leadership. The case centered on allegations of irregularities during the congress, including claims that delegates had been offered inducements to support Ozel.
The decision opened a prolonged dispute over control of the CHP. Ozel’s camp sought an extraordinary congress and submitted hundreds of delegate signatures, while legal appeals over the ruling continued. Tugay resigned from the CHP on June 18, citing the "absolute nullity" ruling and the developments that followed, and initially continued serving as an independent.
The split widened in July, when Ozel and 91 CHP lawmakers resigned and founded New Party on July 24.
Ozel became the new party’s chairman, while the move also shifted the balance of seats in parliament, with the New Party becoming the main opposition group and the CHP losing a large share of its parliamentary representation. Tugay did not join the new formation and remained independent until his move to the AK Party in October.
The change concerns the office of the metropolitan mayor rather than control of every level of local government in the province. The AK Party has previously governed district municipalities in Izmir, but Tugay’s transfer marks the first time the party has held the Izmir metropolitan mayoralty.
Tugay’s move comes amid a broader series of party switches involving locally elected mayors since the March 2024 elections.
Those elections produced one of the most significant changes in Türkiye’s recent local political landscape. According to final figures announced by the Supreme Election Council (YSK), the CHP won 14 of Türkiye’s 30 metropolitan municipalities, while the AK Party won 12. The DEM Party won three and the New Welfare Party (YRP) one.
The result placed the CHP ahead of the AK Party nationally in the 2024 local elections. In the nationwide mayoral vote, the CHP received about 37.8%, compared with 35.5% for the AK Party.
In the months that followed, however, dozens of mayors elected from opposition parties or as independents changed their political affiliation, with most joining the AK Party.
By August 2025, Turkish media reported that 53 mayors had changed political affiliation since the local elections, including 25 mayors originally elected from the YRP who later moved to the AK Party.
The number continued to increase through 2026.
A widely cited tally published on July 6 put the number of mayors who had joined the AK Party since the 2024 election at 84, including mayors elected on CHP, YRP, IYI Party, DEVA Party, Democrat Party and Felicity Party tickets, as well as independents.
Another seven mayors joined the AK Party on Aug. 14, including the mayors of Ankara’s Golbasi and Kahramankazan districts, as well as Tavsanli, Domanic, Idil, Hayrabolu and Eceabat.
Four more followed on Sept. 10: Foca Mayor Saniye Fici in Izmir, Akkisla Mayor Mustafa Dursun and Felahiye Mayor Seref Guleser in Kayseri, and Sungu Mayor Burhan Sayilgan in Mus. Anadolu Agency reported that Erdogan presented all four with their AK Party badges.
On Sept. 29, another nine district mayors joined the party. Five had been elected from the CHP, three from the YRP and one from the IYI Party.
Using the July tally reported by Turkish media as the baseline, those successive transfers took the reported number of mayors joining the AK Party to 104 by the end of September.
Tugay’s accession would therefore make him the 105th mayor under that count to join the party after being elected from another party or as an independent in the post-March 2024 period.
The figure refers specifically to mayors who changed political affiliation. It does not include municipalities where the administration later changed through the appointment of a trustee or the election of an acting mayor by a municipal council.
Tugay’s transfer differs from most of the previous switches because it involves one of Türkiye’s 30 metropolitan municipalities and the country’s third-largest city.
It also follows other transfers in Izmir itself. Foca Mayor Saniye Fici joined the AK Party on Sept. 10, while Cigli Mayor Onur Emrah Yildiz was among the nine mayors who switched parties on Sept. 29.
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