President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday formally kicked off a process for a congress of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party). He was chairing a meeting of the party’s Central Decision-Making and Administrative Committee (MKYK).
MKYK convened at the party’s headquarters in the capital, Ankara, and was closed to the press.
This will be the party’s eighth congress since its inception 23 years ago and its first since 2021. The party convened an extraordinary congress in October 2023. The congress calendar will follow a series of meetings across Türkiye on the township and provincial levels.
The congress will likely see a series of changes among party representatives on a local level and is expected to wrap up in May 2025. There is no word yet whether the party will change its charter, as its main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), plans to do with its convention later this month.
Though the political landscape in the year it was founded propelled the AK Party to the spotlight, landmark steps by successive AK Party governments helped it to stay in power for more than two decades. Those include breaking the taboo on several issues, such as the Kurdish question and a headscarf ban. Along the way, it faced lawsuits for its closure and several coup attempts.
The party was first challenged to remain in power in the 2004 local elections. However, the sweeping social change that brought the AK Party to power as the voice of the previously unheard masses also brought its first municipal election victory. With a vote rate of 41.7%, the AK Party won seats in 1,765 municipalities. In the next general election, it further cemented its success by winning more than 46% of the vote. The successive elections were almost a carbon copy of each other for the AK Party regarding the high vote rate, despite fluctuations at times.
However, the last municipal elections in March proved a challenge for the party, which failed to retake its former strongholds, such as Ankara and Istanbul, from CHP while losing some mayoral seats to CHP. Erdoğan has acknowledged shortcomings in the elections and pledged to reshuffle cadres. Some local chairs of the AK Party have already stepped down from their duties in the aftermath of the election losses.
