The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) joins the growing trend of reshuffles like its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). As the MHP replaced several heads of its provincial branches, the AK Party plans a similar move. The party’s chairs for the provinces of Adana, Diyarbakır, Giresun and Siirt left office in recent weeks and more reshuffles are expected in the coming weeks, media outlets report.
The party’s organization directorate, in charge of local branches, pursues a five-stage model for the reshuffle, the Sabah newspaper reported on Tuesday. This week, the Organization will start conducting votes among members in every province to identify candidates for next provincial chair. The party also seeks input from local civic society organizations, the business world, and opinion leaders to pick candidates. Separately, it will discuss the candidates with former local officials of the party, lawmakers, mayors and local politicians. Every candidate’s economic and social reputation will be assessed for the reshuffle before the candidates are presented to the party’s headquarters. Finally, the report will be presented to the party’s chair, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. After these stages, three candidates will be interviewed for each province. The reshuffle is expected to be wrapped up this month, according to the Sabah newspaper, two months before the anniversary of the AK Party.
Evolved from a modest gathering of the “Movement of the Virtuous,” the party boasts a streak of successive election victories over two decades. It is credited with transforming Türkiye in the first two decades of the 2000s, from education and health care to the arts, democracy, human rights, defense industry and energy.
Nowadays, the party, under the leadership of Erdoğan, is working toward achieving the ambitious Century of Türkiye vision, a new set of reforms aimed at enhancing Türkiye’s standing in the world and improving the lives of the Turkish nation in all fields.
