An AK Party nightmare: the disappointment of rejected candidates

Indeed, speaking during a televised interview on Nov. 20, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also said, "Our success in determining the party's mayoral candidates will determine our success in the upcoming municipal election."

Speaking to Sunday's Zaman, one AK Party executive, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed his concerns about disappointed potential candidates: "We received eight or 10 applications for mayoral candidacy from every municipality, on average. No matter how we tried to do our best in determining the mayoral candidates, some prospective candidates who were not nominated by the party are disappointed. We also know that some who do not openly express their disappointment at not being nominated for the party's mayoral candidate will show their reaction by voting against the AK Party in the elections."

A large portion of these prospective candidates are current mayors who have not been nominated again. Rize Mayor Halil Bakırcı has expressed his disappointment, accusing AK Party Rize deputy Nusret Bayraktar of blocking his nomination. Bayburt Mayor Hacı Ali Polat, who has not been nominated again by the AK Party, said, "No one can claim that I was not successful," and suggested that the AK Party's Bayburt branch prevented his nomination. Şanlıurfa Mayor Ahmet Eşref Fakıbaba, who declared that he will not consider running for Şanlıurfa mayor with another party, stated that he is upset. Denying claims that Erdoğan had suggested nominating him for Parliament, Fakıbaba said: "I am upset because the next term was going to be my best period. Had I been nominated and re-elected, I would have worked to make Şanlıurfa one of the most important cities not only in Turkey but also the world. I am not disappointed, but, as you know, the Şanlıurfa Municipality recently became a metropolitan municipality, and I wanted to serve as the mayor of a metropolitan municipality."

Şanlıurfa is a good example of how local factors determine the results of municipal elections. Fakıbaba was elected mayor of Şanlıurfa when he ran as an AK Party candidate in the 2004 municipal elections. He later parted ways with the party when it failed to nominate him again, but was re-elected mayor as an independent candidate in the 2009 municipal elections. Since the AK Party secured close to 60 percent of the popular vote in the 2004 municipal elections in Şanlıurfa, Fakıbaba's re-election did not seem likely to many people. However, the AK Party's supporters in Şanlıurfa decided to vote for Fakıbaba in 2009. Fakıbaba, who rejoined the AK Party in January 2013, was so confident about his nomination that he did not even apply to the party for mayoral candidacy. There are eight other disappointed prospective candidates in Şanlıurfa. The AK Party's mayoral candidate for the Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality is the city's former governor, Celalettin Güvenç. Güvenç is not from Şanlıurfa, which is why the AK Party's supporters in the city oppose Güvenç's nomination.

Among the 10 prospective mayoral candidates, the one considered the most suitable and thus selected by the party is not from Şanlıurfa, but Kahramanmaraş. The reaction of the people of Şanlıurfa to this decision will be seen when the ballots are opened, but it is not hard to understand the disappointment and resentment of the nine prospective candidates and their circles.

Unlike in previous elections, this time Prime Minister Erdoğan has frequently called on those not nominated by the party to refrain from reflecting their disappointment with their votes. Underlining that the party tried to do its best when choosing the nominations, Erdoğan said: "We do not claim that our decisions are 100 percent correct. But we worked hard to reach the most correct decisions. We have conducted organizational surveys [similar to the US primaries] and public opinion polls. This issue was debated extensively by the party administration. We may make mistakes, but everyone can be assured of our sincerity. It is not possible to nominate every prospective candidate. We just tried to select the most suitable ones."

In addition to the disappointment of current mayors who are not nominated in cities where the AK Party has a broad support base, the AK Party's mayoral choices for municipalities in which the party's candidates are unlikely to succeed also create uneasiness. Muğla, which recently became a metropolitan municipality, is one of these cities. In Muğla, only three people (whose aim was merely to appear as an AK Party candidate, with no hope of winning) have applied to the party for mayoral candidacy in Muğla, where the Republican People's Party (CHP) vote is twice that of the AK Party. However, during a visit to Muğla, Erdoğan announced Muğla University Rector Mansur Harmandar as the party's mayoral candidate for the metropolitan municipality. In the press conference at which his nomination was announced, Dr. Harmandar also expressed his unpreparedness and reluctance about the nomination. Another AK Party executive, who asked to remain anonymous, complained about the lack of coordination between the AK Party's provincial and district administrations in Muğla, adding, "Leaving winning the municipal election in Muğla aside, we may even lose second place to the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP]."

Rize harbors the most resentment

Bakırcı, the AK Party mayor of Rize, harshly criticized the party's Rize deputy, Bayraktar, for blocking his nomination and proposing Reşat Kasap for the mayoral post without consulting him. "I served as deputy mayor of İstanbul's Beyoğlu Municipality when Bayraktar was mayor of Beyoğlu. I engaged in some illegal acts and wrongdoing while serving as his deputy," Bakırcı said.

Bakırcı also claimed that he had ordered the demolition of some historical buildings with the knowledge of then-Beyoğlu Mayor Bayraktar, despite the fact that such decisions regarding historical sites and buildings did not fall within the scope of their authority.

Holding a press conference in the Rize Municipality Building, Bakırcı said he was considering re-election in the city and had engaged in consultations with Bayraktar and Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazıcı, another AK Party deputy from Rize, to decide who would run for the mayoral post on behalf of the AK Party.

"Since they did not provide me with a clear answer, I applied to the party for my re-election. When the AK Party announced that Kasap would run for the mayoral post in Rize, I spoke with Bayraktar, and he told me at first that he had nothing to do with Kasap's nomination and that Minister Yazıcı and AK Party Rize deputy Hasan Karal had proposed him to the Prime Ministry. I told Bayraktar that if the party administration had determined Kasap as the party's mayoral candidate, then I would announce that I would not seek re-election, and we would conduct organizational surveys to reveal the opinions of AK Party supporters in Rize about his nomination. In that way we would not face any problems in the future," he said.

However, Bayraktar, who previously said that he had no role in the decision on the AK Party candidate for Rize, publicized Kasap's nomination three days before the official announcement by Erdoğan.