Ruling party pursues effective policies to reach out to young people

The Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed that the party's media promotion department has been successfully reaching out to young people.

Speaking in a televised interview with the participation of young people on Monday, Erdoğan underscored that a high number of young people have been supporting the AK Party compared to other parties and added, "We have an age limit; under 30 years old are members of the youth organization and we have about 1 million members only in the youth organization." He highlighted that "our departments of media promoting along with research and development have been using social media in the best way and successfully continuing their work to reach out to the people."

For the upcoming local elections, Erdoğan has been stressing that the AK Party attaches great importance to young people. As part of its election campaign, the AK Party is aiming to put more emphasis on its election campaign conducted on social media, which is considered an effective tool for politicians to reach young voters. According to statistics, around 1.59 million voters, among a total of 57 million, voted for the first time in the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections. With more than 16 percent of its total population aged between 15 and 24, the highest among European countries, Turkey's political future lies with young voters. In order to draw the attention of young people in the upcoming elections and the party's election campaign, the AK Party has been preparing advertisements with colorful touches such as rap songs that can be interesting to young people.

Previously, the AK Party announced that old campaigning tools will not be preferred in the March 31 elections with the aim of preventing visual and noise pollution. The AK Party has stressed that social media will be used more in the election period to convey the projects of the candidates.

For the local elections the AK Party will continue its alliance, the People's Alliance, with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The alliance was formed ahead of the June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections. The alliance secured a majority in Parliament, while their presidential candidate, Erdoğan, won the election with 52.6 percent of the votes. Since both parties consider the results of the June 24 elections successful, they now seek to continue their alliance in the local elections.