The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has accelerated its campaign for the local March 2019 elections on the ground through talks between party members and the public.

AK party heads of local administrations are conducting field research in seven regions, by asking people's opinions on possible candidates for the upcoming elections. The AK Party also started to conduct SMS-survey projects this week to evaluate opinions of the public on the services of municipalities. The review gatherings will be presented at the party meeting camp in the first week of October.

Campaign tours around Turkey will begin when the parliament of Turkey is opened. The president and the chairman of the party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is reportedly planning to visit 30 metropolitan areas that have a significant vote potential. The party is also expected to do special work in some key provinces, particularly the commercial capitals Istanbul and Ankara.

Accordingly, the AK Party vice chairman responsible for local administrations, Mehmet Özhaseki, previously announced that they will retain their alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which was proven to be successful in the June 24 elections.

The AK Party won 18 out of 30 metropolitan municipalities in the 2014 elections and it received 42.6 percent of the vote acquiring 295 seats in Parliament. However the party experienced a 7 percent drop at the ballots, costing them the majority in Parliament. Therefore, since then the AK Party has been working hard to rejuvenate the party by changing the party organization and reshuffling its executive board at its sixth grand congress.