AK Party’s election manifesto: Real municipalism for cities of Türkiye Century

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday announced the Justice and Development (AK) Party's manifesto ahead of the March 31 local elections.

HERE ARE SOME KEY POINTS FROM PRESIDENT ERDOĞAN'S STATEMENTS:

''To achieve great dreams, one must make good preparations, work diligently with sincerity and determination. We are a team that embarked on a journey of service to the country and the nation 30 years ago, starting in municipalities; we are a movement of this kind. With the principle "Serving the people is serving the Creator," we first won the hearts of our people with our successes in the cities. After coming to power, we continued to connect every inch of the homeland with investments, projects, and services, with the same sentiment. We not only addressed the infrastructure deficiencies and century-old neglects of the country but also built the future of the nation with our 2023 goals and our Türkiye Century vision.''
''We have determined the title of our election manifesto as Real municipalism for the cities of Türkiye Century.

OUR MANIFESTO CONSISTS OF 8 MAIN TOPICS:

- AK Party Local Governance Vision

- Participation, Transparency, and Accountability

- Resilient Cities

- City and Environment in Türkiye Century

- Social Welfare-Prioritized Urban Economies

- Social Municipalism for Peaceful and Social Structure

- Cities Generating Culture

- Service and Project-Oriented Municipalism''
''This manifesto serves as both a summary of AK Party's municipal expertise, which has now become a brand, and a document embodying the promises we have made to our nation for the new era. AK Party, as in every field, competes with itself in municipal governance. In this regard, we have yet to see a local governance vision and implementation that can match or surpass AK Party's, let alone exceed it.''
''Our sole focus is on the needs of our country and cities, as well as the expectations of our people. Indeed, the metro line inaugurated just yesterday in Istanbul, constructed by our Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, stands as the most recent and concrete example of this approach. Similarly, the City Hospital we opened in Izmir is another illustration.''
''The rightful owner of everything good, beautiful, and beneficial that we produce, implement, and bring to the country is our nation. We present our 'Real Municipalism for the Cities of Türkiye Century' program as a collective gift to our people, considering it as the common value of every individual living in our country. The vision upon which our election manifesto is built is the result of our 30 years of municipal experience and the culmination of the global power level our country has achieved through political, economic, and military strength.''
''In line with this, our priorities in local governments for the new era will include: establishing resilient and disaster-resistant settlements, adapting our cities to climate change, implementing infrastructure compatible with smart applications and next-generation digital technologies, and strengthening the understanding of local governance focused on local development and value-added economy. We will leave clean cities with clean air, water, soil, and surroundings for our children. We aim to adorn our country with cities that have preserved aesthetic, historical, and cultural assets, creating peaceful and secure urban environments.''
''We are building our commitment to "Real Municipalism," which forms the essence of our vision, on the following 13 fundamental principles: Productive, just, accessible, visionary, compassionate, sustainable, innovative, developmental, contemporary, strong, inclusive, dynamic, and patriotic municipal governance. Essentially, with all these principles, approaches, goals, each of which we can elaborate with dozens, hundreds of subtopics, we will construct the "Cities of Türkiye Century" as if laying brick by brick.''
''The AK Party is known for announcing significant projects in both general and local elections. If you observe, in recent elections, we no longer place large projects at the center of our election promises. Beyond being a regional power, every project of Türkiye, which is now progressing towards becoming a country with a global voice and influence, is already substantial.''