The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) admitted Cemil Tugay, mayor of Türkiye’s third-largest city, Izmir, on Wednesday. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented Tugay with the party’s badge at an official ceremony in Ankara, at the party's congress center of the party.

Tugay has recently resigned from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and met Erdoğan at the presidential complex last month. His switch marks a major turning point for the opposition, which lost a large number of mayors to the AK Party since the 2024 election. This will be the first time the AK Party will run the municipality of Izmir, a traditional stronghold of CHP, which itself lost substantial power when former chair Özgür Özel resigned and founded New Party (YP) in July.

The event Tugay attended was originally a gathering to mark the start of the new legislative year, which began last week. However, the mayor was the highlight of the event attended by a large crowd of supporters, as well as several ministers. Tugay's switch was not fully official before the AK Party's social media account released a video on Tuesday evening, showing flowers blossoming over a mountain of garbage, in reference to an old anthem about Izmir dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, first president of the Republic of Türkiye and founder of the CHP.

Tugay, elected mayor in 2024 as a CHP candidate, left the opposition party in June, one month after a bitter split among supporters of reinstated chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Özgür Özel, who was ousted after a court verdict annulling his chairmanship on charges of vote-buying in a 2023 intra-party election. Despite consecutive wins in most provinces and districts in the past two decades, where it dominated the political landscape, the AK Party found little support in the city, which is viewed as the heartland of CHP voters. The opposition supporters staged a rally against the switch on Tuesday in Izmir. Tugay has defeated AK Party lawmaker Hamza Dağ in the 2024 vote, winning 48% of the vote against Dağ's 37%. CHP has also won 28 of Izmir's 30 district municipalities in the same election.

CHP suffered losses of mayors since the 2024 elections as criminal investigations uncovered a vast network of corruption in most municipalities in what the AK Party called "tentacles of an octopus." Tugay's predecessor Tunç Soyer is also in custody in a similar investigation into corruption.

A total of 108 mayors joined the AK Party from other parties in the past two years and most are from CHP. Metropolitan municipalities of Ankara and Istanbul remained CHP domains until Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş resigned from the party in September, while Istanbul is governed by Nuri Aslan, an acting mayor who succeeded Ekrem Imamoğlu, the first metropolitan municipality mayor of the opposition party to be arrested on charges of corruption in 2025. Imamoğlu's conviction may prompt a new election at the municipality. Both Yavaş and Imamoğlu were viewed as future presidential contenders of CHP. Imamoğlu was officially declared such after his arrest. Özgür Özel, who nominated Tugay in the 2024 election, claimed on Tuesday that Tugay was forced to defect to the AK Party while accusing him of treason in the same statement.

'Here to win hearts'

Speaking at the ceremony, Tugay, accompanied by his wife Öznur on the stage, said he joined the AK Party "to be a friend of those devoted to this cause for a strong Türkiye under the leadership of our president." "I came here with faith and trust," he told the applause of AK Party supporters. He recalled his upbringing in Izmir as the child of a modest family and how he served his country for about 30 years as a doctor. "Then, someone I respected told me that the best way to serve the nation is through politics and I took upon this advice." He mentioned his past as mayor of Izmir's Karşıyaka district and how he provided services for "all residents of Izmir without discrimination." "All residents have been a family to me," he added. He pointed out that Izmir was a precious city of patriotic people. "It is an honor to serve this city," he said.

Tugay also reasoned his switch to the AK Party with past remarks by Erdoğan, who repeatedly said the AK Party was "friend of the disenfranchised." "I am engaged in politics to defend the rights of forgotten people living on the periphery of cities, forgotten poor, to defend the rights of farmers and small business owners," Tugay said. He then quoted Sufi poet and mystic Yunus Emre: "I am not here to fight, I am here for love. Hearts are abode of my friends; I am here to win hearts." "Under the leadership of our president and valuable support of experienced AK Party family, we embark on a journey to revive Izmir, to resolve its problems," he said. During long reigns of CHP, Izmir was embattled with a variety of problems, particularly in garbage collection and poor infrastructure.

President Erdoğan said at the ceremony that the AK Party family was growing with new members. "Those who are fed up with the pressure of party barons doing everything in exchange for bribes, those who do not want to be subjected to obscene insults in the middle of the night, and those who seek to serve their cities in peace and harmony see the AK Party as the safest address,” Erdoğan said, in veiled remarks towards Özgür Özel, whose WhatsApp correspondence with a district mayor in Ankara, where he hurled insults over his anticipated switch to the AK Party, was made public. Özel and other top figures of the opposition were also accused of asking for bribes in return for the nomination of mayors, according to the statements of the former mayor of Antalya province, who was arrested earlier on corruption charges.

The president, who made his name in politics after his election as Istanbul mayor in 1994, noted that the AK Party was behind the revolutionary changes in municipal governance with landmark public services. "No one can compete with the AK Party’s approach to municipal governance. No one can compete with the AK Party on finding practical solutions to problems, delivering results quickly, developing projects and setting out a vision for our cities. Municipal governance may be a means of personal benefits for others, but for us, it is solely a means of serving the nation.”

Erdoğan said municipal governance could be a means for others to enrich themselves, their spouses, friends and associates, but for his party it is a position of heavy responsibility that requires serving the nation, making sacrifices and working day and night for the people, referring to the corruption scandals plaguing the opposition.

The president then turned to Tugay and said: "Welcome to the AK Party family; we are delighted to have you with us.” He said they would support Tugay in his efforts to serve Izmir, the "pearl of the Aegean,” and its residents.