Mayor of Izmir joins AK Parti: city leadership passes to the ruling party for the first time
The mayor of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, Cemil Tugay, has joined the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party).
Thus, the political leadership of the municipality in Izmir, which is considered one of the main political strongholds of the opposition CHP (Republican People's Party) in Turkey, has passed to the ruling party for the first time, Turkish media report.
Having previously left the ranks of the CHP and continued for some time to serve as an independent mayor, Cemil Tugay, following recent contacts with representatives of the central government, made the final decision to join the ruling party. The transfer of the municipality's leadership in Izmir — a city that for many years has been considered a symbolic "fortress" of the CHP — is regarded as a major step capable of substantially changing the political balance and the dynamics of local self-government on a nationwide scale.
