The Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has been governing the country for over two decades, launched a new process of congresses last October. The process that followed unprecedented losses in the March 31 municipal elections continued into 2025. The party’s chair, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is expected to attend the next local congresses over the weekend in the Black Sea provinces of Ordu and Samsun.
The events aim to bring forward Erdoğan’s post-election message that focused on “change” within the party, both in cadres and policies. Several heads of the party’s local branches had already stepped down from their posts, while some incumbents decided not to run in intraparty elections. Congresses at provincial and district levels will conclude with a national congress, which will likely be held in February. So far, senior cadres of local branches of the AK Party changed in 37 cities.
Erdoğan attended nine provincial congresses while the party’s senior figures and lawmakers participated in all events. The president will attend the congresses in Izmir, Türkiye’s third largest city and a stronghold of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), on Feb. 1, Sabah newspaper recently reported. He will also attend a congress in the capital, Ankara, on Feb. 7 and in Istanbul on Feb. 8.
The municipal elections proved a challenge for the party, which failed to retake its former strongholds, such as Ankara and Istanbul, from the CHP while losing some mayoral seats to the CHP.
Although it is casually labeled as “Islamist” or “conservative” by its critics, the AK Party became a staple of Turkish politics with its all-embracing politics when it was launched more than two decades ago. Voters who endorsed left-wing or right-wing parties of the yesteryear and were disillusioned with the tumultuous era of unstable coalition governments carried the party to its first victory. In the ensuing years, the party strengthened its ranks with new transfers, welcoming prominent politicians who were once its opponents, including several from its main rival, the CHP. Its ties with disadvantaged communities, as well as communities who were deprived of their rights by the past governments, such as Kurds, cemented the party’s place in politics.