AK Party to survey delegates again for municipal candidates


The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will conduct a second tendency survey for municipalities where more than one candidate's names have come to the forefront.

The AK Party will have to complete the process before President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prepares to announce the final list of candidates tomorrow. Although most names for key municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara, were clearer, a number of municipalities were left with two names with very close percentages of votes.

As a result, the party has decided to do a second survey where it will ask "which candidate do you prefer," instead of "who do you want to see as the mayor."

The party previously held an electronic tendency survey in all the 81 provinces to determine its candidates for the March 2019 local elections with the participation of 127,148 delegates. Reports claimed that candidates for Antalya, Konya, Kocaeli, Erzincan, Bolu, Sivas, Denizli, Kırşehir, Tokat and Gümüşhane were determined by first tendency surveys while Parliament Speaker Binali Yıldırım and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu emerged as the most popular names for the Istanbul mayor's office.

Current Ankara Mayor Mustafa Tuna and AK Party Deputy Chairman Mehmet Özhaseki were among the names that come up for Ankara. The final candidates will be announced by Erdoğan on Saturday at 2 p.m

.