As the elections approach

There are 100 days left until the local elections.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced all 81 candidates running under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the municipal elections slated for March of next year. Out of the incumbent 47 AK Party mayors, 21 will not run again and have been replaced with new candidates. The only female candidate is current Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin, who will run for mayor of the southern province of Gaziantep. The average age of the candidates is 50. The candidates' level of education is very high; many of the 81 people selected are engineers, lawyers and doctors. There are currently 34 cities not governed by AK Party mayors; the AK Party will endeavor to change this by putting up new candidates.

According to Radikal columnist Koray Çalışkan, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) is favored in three major cities: İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir. The CHP candidate for İzmir, Aziz Kocaoğlu, is expected to win by a landslide as in previous local elections, wrote Çalışkan. As for İstanbul, Çalışkan says the chances of Kadir Topbaş, the current mayor, of being re-elected have been reduced following the Gezi Park protests and because he is not on good terms with Erdoğan. Çalışkan also said that the majority of Ankara residents dislike current Mayor Melih Gökçek and so the CHP can win the election there.

Bugün's Gülay Göktürk wrote that it is very difficult to make predictions on the percentage of votes each candidate will receive in the elections because a lot of the polls have been conducted by political parties and differ in their results. The CHP candidate for İstanbul, Mustafa Sarıgül, is seen as a politician who respects devout citizens, but that could cause a decrease in the number of CHP voters with leftist views who support him, said Göktürk.

	YAVUZ BAYDAR

	His own worst enemy -- himself

	ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

	No way to investigate corruption allegations

	JOOST LAGENDIJK

	Don't forget the Syrians

	BERK ÇEKTİR

	Terminating a Turkish company (2)

	CEMİL ERTEM

	Individual liberty and ownership

	MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE

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	DOĞU ERGİL

	Time to heal and repair

	BERİL DEDEOĞLU

	Young people ask ‘the' question

	AMANDA PAUL

	Yearning for the Soviet Union

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