Political parties eye best faces for polls

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Political parties eye best faces for polls
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Aralık 02, 2008 00:00

ANKARA - With four months until local elections, political parties have intensified their efforts to find the best nominations for each city, town or region, but disclosing the selections will take time with each party waiting for the others to show their cards first.

For many, the local elections will be a test for the ruling party, which gathered 47 percent of votes during last year’s general elections. That is why ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is taking these elections very seriously from top to bottom. As for the opposition, any decrease in the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, votes will be seen as the ruling party’s failure to gain a vote of confidence from the people. All candidates should be reported to the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, by Jan. 15, 2009.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chaired a two-day party meeting in the Ankara district of Kızılcahamam to review the party’s election committee’s reports and suggestions.

"We will continue our evaluations with our deputies, members of municipal assemblies and our party’s local branches," Erdoğan said, addressing party colleagues in closing remarks late Sunday. This evaluation should be completed within a few days and announcements made Friday.

Shock from Adana
A day after Erdoğan publicly challenged his mayors, Aytaç Durak, AKP mayor of Adana, announced his resignation from the party. Durak was among the mayors Erdoğan was not planning to re-nominate and according to political observers, he said he would seek to join another party before the elections. Durak was elected as Adana mayor from the ranks of AKP in 2004 elections. Other bad news for the AKP came from the Ankara district of Çubuk where its mayor, Adem Tuğluca, was taken into custody yesterday due to corruption claims.

For Istanbul, the current mayor, Kadir Topbaş, is likely to be re-nominated, observers believe. If Erdoğan approves Topbaş’ second term as mayor, then he will declare it quickly to avoid speculation. For Erdoğan, who will be the party’s Ankara candidate is an important problem. Current Ankara Mayor Gökçek, who has been ruling the country’s capital for the last 15 years, seems to be the party’s natural nominee. Back in 2004, the party administration accepted Gökçek’s request to rule the city for another term on the condition that it would be his last.

That condition was also a message to the mayor of the city’s largest district of Keçiören, Turgut Altınok, who had been seeking Ankara’s mayoral office for a long time. The nomination of Murat Karayalçın, a former Ankara mayor, from the ranks of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, has strengthened Gökçek’s chances as he has won two elections against Karayalçın in the past.

Another region where the party is paying significant attention is southeastern Anatolia, where it faces tense competition with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP. AKP’s deputy leader and Diyarbakır deputy, Abdulkadir Aksu, is leading a team in the region. Erdoğan has not made it a secret that he wants to win elections in Diyarbakır, Tunceli and Hakkari, the fortress of the DTP.

CHP undecided
Upcoming local elections also mean a lot for the main opposition party, which lost hold of some of its fortresses during the last local elections. CHP’s Deniz Baykal even lost Antalya, his hometown, where the CHP was very strong five years ago. For Istanbul, the architect of the "black chador opening," Gürsel Tekin, former minister Ercan Karakaş, industrialist Oğuz Satıcı and current president of the United Nations Development Program, Kemal Derviş, are on the short list.

Baykal, despite pressure, avoided the announcement of the nomination of current İzmir mayor, Aziz Kocaoğlu. Instead he declared Sefa Sirmen as the party’s nominee in Kocaeli. For İzmir, Kocaoğlu still has a chance.
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