The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will finalize preparations with two workshops starting on Thursday before it holds its fifth ordinary congress on Saturday Sept. 12. The current AK Party chairman and interim prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, is expected to run as the sole candidate for chairman in the congress. Moreover, new members of the Central Decision and Administrative Board (MKYK), which is the main body of the party with 50 people, will also be elected in the congress. Well-known AK Party figures such Ali Babacan, Binali Yıldırım, Ömer Çelik and Taner Yıldız who did not run in the June 7 elections due to AK Party's three consecutive terms rule are expected to be on the MKYK as wells as on the deputy candidate list for the Nov. 1 election.

The new election slogan is also expected to be announced at the congress. AK Party sources have indicated that the election campaign will focus on the importance of stability and the main slogan of the party will be: "Vote AK Party for stability."

A total of 3,656 people have applied to be AK Party deputy candidates for the Nov. 1 general election. There are 558 female and 3,098 male applicants. The statistics show the average age of AK Party applicants is 46. According to education profiles, 51 percent of the applicants are university graduates, 22 percent of them have master's degrees or higher and 5 percent are only primary school graduates. As for professions, lawyers have the highest representation at 15 percent followed by engineers at 14 percent.

According to recent studies conducted by AK Party staff, mistakes on its list of deputy candidates caused a loss in AK Party votes, especially in eastern Turkey. To prevent mistakes from happening again, the AK Party will review deputy candidates in critical eastern provinces, such as Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van, and influential individuals in the region will be announced as candidates. Moreover, the party reports also show that the party lost 25 deputies in 18 provinces with less than 1,000 votes. Therefore, the party will concentrate on these provinces, which are mainly in the Black Sea region, to recover the lost ground in the election campaign.

The final list of AK Party deputy candidates will be presented to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on Sept. 18 and the party is expected to announce its candidate list and election manifesto on Sept. 22.