Eyyüp Kadir Inan, outgoing chief of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for the youth branch, says some 700,000 youth joined the party in the past four years and counted more than 1 million members between the ages of 18 and 30.
Inan, who also serves as a lawmaker for the western province of Izmir, will step down from his post in an AK Party congress on Monday. The congress is among numerous similar events the AK Party held in a bid to change top cadres. Inan told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday that the party was founded in 2001 as the “party of the nation” and led the transformation of Türkiye, adding that its youth branch took revolutionary steps to attract more young people to politics.
The AK Party derives widespread support from older people in rapidly aging Türkiye. Over the past two decades, it sought to bring in more youth. Inan noted that AK Party governments led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lowered the age of being elected into office to 25 and then 18. The party on Saturday had transferred Zeynep Çelik, Türkiye’s youngest mayor, at 22. Inan said four out of the youngest five lawmakers currently in Parliament were AK Party members, and Erdoğan attached importance to the youth in politics. “The president always prioritized youth in politics, but it was not an easy task. When the age of eligibility for election was lowered to 18 in 2017, (the main opposition) the Republican People’s Party (CHP) opposed it. During the 2023 elections, Turkish youth faced the threat of polarization over a debate on Generation Z,” Inan told AA. The so-called Generation Z in the 2023 elections were those between the ages of 18 and 24, mostly first-time voters. The opposition bloc against Erdoğan and the AK Party, led by septuagenarian Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, focused their campaign on first-time voters who were born during two decades of AK Party domination in politics. In response, the AK Party launched “youth meetings,” with Erdoğan regularly holding conversations with groups of youths in various provinces. The 32-year-old Inan said they held 50 such events since 2021. “Polls, surveys show the youth threw the strongest support behind the AK Party in 2023’s legislative and presidential elections,” Inan stated.
“We expected the Nation’s Alliance (of the opposition) would make room for the youth in the 2023 elections, but none of the lawmakers who won the election on their list was under the age of 30,” he noted.