President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan disclosed the name of the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) candidate for the mayor's seat in the capital Ankara as Turgut Altınok on Thursday.

Altınok, who currently serves as mayor of Keçiören, the second biggest district of the capital, joins the list of candidates for 48 cities the party announced at a ceremony in the capital, some two months before the March 31 municipal elections. Hamza Dağ, deputy chair of the AK Party, was nominated in Izmir. The third-largest city of Türkiye is viewed as a stronghold of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

The new list of candidates follows the Jan. 7 announcement of metropolitan municipalities where former Minister Murat Kurum was named AK Party candidate for Istanbul.

Some mayoral candidates Erdoğan announced in Ankara were incumbent AK Party mayors, while some were heads of the party's local branches. The mayors of Konya, Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep were renominated.

In Antalya, the party nominated Hakan Tütüncü, the incumbent mayor of the city's Kepez district. The party lost to the opposition in the 2019 elections in Antalya, a popular Mediterranean destination for tourists from around the world.

Altınok was among the names rumored to be nominated in Ankara and will square off against incumbent Mansur Yavaş, nominated again by the CHP. Both men started their political careers in the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), currently the main ally of the People's Alliance led by the AK Party. He served multiple tenures starting in 1994 as mayor of Keçiören. He was elected as AK Party candidate again in 2004. He parted ways with the party in 2013 but returned and won the 2019 municipal election as the AK Party candidate.

Addressing an enthusiastic crowd of supporters at ATO Congresium Hall in the capital, Erdoğan said his party fielded candidates in all provinces except seven where the AK Party will endorse the candidates of its main ally, the MHP.

"Our goal is to introduce genuine municipal services to people living in opposition-run municipalities," he said. "We want to crown our journey in municipal services in 2024," Erdoğan said, referring to the party's successful record in running local administrations, following in the footsteps of Erdoğan's own tenure as Istanbul mayor long before the foundation of the AK Party.

Erdoğan pointed out the party's successful streak of election wins, which was 17 in total. "We have never been a party that only remembers the electorate just before the election. Our nation recognizes our services and our vision. We embrace all segments of the society," he said.

He warned the candidates to work hard and not rely solely on their party's name. "Nobody has to vote for you, but you have to reach out to them," Erdoğan, whose party is among the longest-ruling in Türkiye's modern history, said.

"You have to win their hearts and minds," he said, calling on party supporters to work for candidates of the MHP where they would endorse the ally.

The polls are taking place nearly a year after the presidential and parliamentary elections were held in May 2023, and they seem to hold as much of a stake for the competing parties.

Türkiye's local elections, recurring every five years, cover mayoral seats of metropolitan cities, provinces, provincial districts and towns, as well as mukhtars of villages and neighborhoods, boards of aldermen, and members of city councils and municipal boards.

The AK Party lost control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in 25 years and some five megacities to the CHP in the last local elections of 2019. A controversial rerun handed Istanbul to CHP's Ekrem Imamoğlu, who now faces the risk of a political ban in an ongoing lawsuit. With his trial postponed to April 2024, the popular mayor is looking to run for a second term after leading a coup to replace CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with his favored man Özgür Özel last year.

March 2024 is poised to be a critical test for the opposition parties, which were united under a coalition in 2019 that only fell apart after last May's defeat.

Despite new management, the CHP faces dwindling odds as its allies, the nationalist Good Party (IP) and PKK-affiliated Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), a successor of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), will field their own candidates in most constituencies.