The Republican People's Party (CHP) is expected to conclude determining candidates for the local elections scheduled for March 31 after the party caucus meeting planned for Jan. 16.

The party caucus has gathered five times under Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to determine candidates who will compete in the upcoming local elections so far. The one on Jan. 16 will be the sixth meeting of the party caucus, according to the Anadolu Agency (AA).

As a result of the first five meetings, the CHP revealed its mayoral candidates for 15 metropolitan cities, 28 provinces, 437 districts and 150 towns, including a total of 630 mayoral candidates. After the next week's meeting, the party will also announce its mayoral candidates for the remaining provinces and districts. In line with the cooperation of the right-wing Good Party (İP), the CHP previously announced joint mayoral candidates for the capital Ankara, Turkey's cultural and commercial center Istanbul, the southern holiday resort province of Antalya and the Adana municipality.

They did not announce the mayoral candidate of the CHP stronghold and Turkey's third-most-populous province, İzmir. The candidate is expected to be announced in the next party caucus meeting.

The names of CHP İzmir deputy Tuncay Özkan, Abdül Batur, Narlıdere district mayor since 1999, and Kamil Okyay Sındır, the CHP's İzmir deputy, come to the front for a mayoral candidate in the CHP stronghold.

So far, the CHP nominated former mayor of Ankara's Beyzparı district, Mansur Yavaş, for Ankara, and mayor of Istanbul's Beylikdüzü district, Ekrem İmamoğlu, for Istanbul municipality. As a part of the alliance strategy, the party has withdrawn its Balıkesir candidate, Ahmet Akın, from his post with a joint resolution taken in party caucus meeting.

However, the party administrations of the CHP and İP in certain districts protested the parties' decision to back the candidate of the other party in the local elections.

Amid the disputes, the two parties met in late December to discuss possible cooperation strategies in the remaining province and district municipalities. Reportedly, the CHP and İP will cooperate in 16 more provincial municipalities, in addition to 21 metropolitan municipalities. The final state of the alliance is expected to be shared with the public in the coming days.

It is also expected for the CHP to announce several other names at the end of the month, if the party does fail to complete the determination of its mayoral candidates.