AKP gains 4.5 million-person Izmir mayoralty in Tugay defection

Cemil Tugay, mayor of 4.5 million-person Izmir, joined President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP on Oct. 7, Balkan Insight reported in a news article.

The move gives Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party control of Turkey’s third-largest city hall after Tugay won 49% of the vote for the opposition CHP in the 2024 local elections, almost 12 percentage points ahead of the AKP candidate’s 37%.

Tugay received his AKP badge during the party’s parliamentary group meeting. The report said the AKP had not previously captured the Izmir mayoralty through an election.

“I welcome Izmir Metropolitan Mayor Cemil Tugay, who joined us, the AKP family, today,” Erdogan said, in remarks quoted by Balkan Insight. “I want to emphasise that we will support him with all our means in his efforts to serve Izmir, the pearl of the Aegean, and our fellow citizens in Izmir.”

Tugay said, “I love Izmir very much,” and added, “Very good things await Izmir.” He also called Erdogan “the greatest leader,” the report said.

Izmir is one of Turkey’s main economic centres and sits on the Aegean coast. The city has been an opposition stronghold for decades, making the defection politically significant beyond the mayor’s office itself.

The move comes during wider upheaval among Erdogan’s opponents. Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas left the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, on Sept. 23 after internal turmoil split the party between a leadership restored to Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the New Party, founded by former CHP leader Ozgur Ozel.

Yavas has remained independent. Tugay’s move is different because it directly transfers the mayor’s partisan affiliation to Erdogan’s ruling party.

Ozel challenged Erdogan’s parliamentary celebration of the defection. “You have never won Izmir at the ballot box, and you never will,” he said, addressing Erdogan.

Control of the metropolitan council has not shifted in the same way. The New Party holds 93 seats, compared with 38 for the AKP, 33 for the CHP, 12 independents and seven members of the AKP-allied Nationalist Party.

Source: news article, Balkan Insight, Oct. 7, 2026.