President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced Tuesday 20 more candidates for city mayors including capital Ankara and Turkey's third largest city of Izmir at the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) parliamentary group meeting in Ankara.
Former Environment and Urban Planning Minister Mehmet Özhaseki, who now serves a deputy from central Kayseri province AK Party vice chairman in charge of local administrations, nominated for capital Ankara. Özhaseki served as the mayor of Kayseri for nearly 17 years between June 1998 and Feb. 2015, when he resigned ahead of the parliamentary in June. In Nov. 2015, Özhaseki was appointed as the minister of environment and urban planning, a post he held until July 2018.
Former Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Melih Gökçek, who ran Ankara uninterruptedly for 23 years, resigned in Oct. 2017 amid the AK Party's rejuvenation bid and was replaced by Mustafa Tuna, then mayor of Sincan district.
The AK Party's candidate for western Izmir province, which is a stronghold of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), was former Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci.
Erdoğan, who's also the AK Party's chairman, announced the names of the candidates for 10 metropolitan municipalities and 10 city municipalities.
Here are the candidates announced by Erdoğan:
Afyonkarahisar: Mehmet Zeybek (former province chairman)
Ankara: Mehmet Özhaseki
Balıkesir: Yücel Yılmaz (incumbent mayor of Karesi district)
Bingöl: Erdal Arıkan
Çanakkale: Ayhan Gider
Çankırı: Hüseyin Boz
Çorum: Halil İbrahim Şıvgın
Eskişehir: Burhan Sakallı
Hatay: İbrahim Güler (province chairman)
Izmir: Nihat Zeybekci
Karaman: Mahmut Sami Şahin
Konya: Uğur İbrahim Altay
Mardin: Mehmet Vejdi Kahraman
Muş: Feyat Asya
Sakarya: Ekrem Yüce (general director of Çaykur)
Sivas: Hilmi Bilgin (deputy justice minister)
Tokat: Eyüp Eroğlu (incumbent)
Trabzon: Murat Zorluoğlu (incumbent governor of Van province)
Uşak: Mehmet Çakın (province chairman)
Yozgat: Celal Köse (province chairman)
On Saturday, Erdoğan announced the names of mayoral candidates for 40 provinces. However, candidates for the country's largest three cities, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir were not revealed.
Parliament Speaker Binali Yıldırım has been weighed as the most probable figure to run for mayor in Istanbul in the local elections which are scheduled for March 31, 2019.
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli announced over the weekend that his party will support the candidates of the AK Party in the three biggest provinces of the country in the upcoming municipal elections.
Considering the election results from the past two municipal elections held in 2009 and 2014, the ruling party is expected to likely win again in Istanbul and Ankara, and pose a major threat in the opposition stronghold western İzmir province.
