The mayor of Turkey’s most prominent opposition stronghold has defected to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, in a move that prompted protests and criticism over the state of the country’s democracy.
Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has never won a mayoral election in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. It is widely seen as a bastion of secular opposition parties who reject the president’s brand of Islamist nationalism.
But mayor Cemil Tugay joined the AKP in a ceremony on Wednesday, and in a short speech described the party as “protector of the defenceless.” Mr Erdogan said he would support Mr Tugay “with all our resources in the effort to serve Izmir.”
Taking control of Izmir, a province home to 4.5 million people, is a major win for the Turkish President, whose party has long criticised the opposition’s governance of the key Aegean coast centre.
It was “a new era” and “a fresh start for Izmir,” local AKP chief Bilal Saygili said in a post on X.
The move is the most prominent of a spate of recent defections to the AKP, in what critics have described as efforts by the ruling party to maintain rule over city governance despite an overwhelming defeat in local elections in 2024.
“What does this tell us about the state of Turkish democracy? Well, it tells us that it doesn't exist,” Berk Esen, an Istanbul-based political scientist, told The National.
Following Mr Tugay’s move, more than 1,000 protesters took to the streets in Izmir chanting slogans criticising the move, but were met with security barricades and anti-riot police, AFP reported.
Local professional groups said Mr Tugay no longer had legitimacy and had disrespected the electorate’s wishes.
“At this point, what must be done is to step down from that office,” Izmir Bar Association said in a statement on social media.
He has “betrayed the duty entrusted to him,” the medics’ association said.
Nine people resigned as advisers to the municipal theatre, saying that Mr Tugay’s defection “disregards the will of Izmir’s people and our audience.”
Mr Tugay had previously denied he was considering joining the AKP. His wife had told him she would divorce him and his mother that she would disown him if he did so, he told Turkish media in January. Despite this, his wife Oznur Tugay appeared alongside her husband and Mr Erdogan at Wednesday's ceremony.
Mr Tugay had won the mayoralty in 2024 with 48.97 per cent of the vote for the Republican People’s Party (CHP). At the time, the CHP was Turkey’s main opposition party, but in May this year it was hit with a lawsuit that saw its leadership removed and replaced.
That prompted the formation of another group, the New Party, which has since taken over as the country’s largest opposition force. Mr Tugay left the CHP following the May lawsuit but did not join the New Party and continued to serve as an independent mayor. Opposition parties retain control of the municipal council.
Critics of Mr Erdogan’s AKP characterise the defection as part of a pressure campaign on Turkey’s political opposition, which has faced arrests, lawsuits and defections over the past two years.
“Elections are losing their meaning and significance because even if the ruling party loses elections, it can figure out extra-legal, extra-constitutional ways of reversing the outcome of these elections – in other words, reversing opposition victories,” Mr Esen said.
Mr Tugay is not the first provincial mayor to defect to the AKP. Last year Ozlem Cercioglu, the mayor of Aydin in western Turkey, resigned from the CHP and switched to the AKP. Tens of district-level mayors, a less senior position than a provincial mayor, have also defected, alongside two MPs.
Other opposition officials have been arrested. Seven opposition provincial mayors have been arrested since the 2024 vote, six of whom are still in prison, according to a tally published yesterday by news website Oksijen.
The most prominent case is Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who remains in prison following his arrest in March 2025. He denies wrongdoing in multiple corruption cases that are currently going through the courts. Twenty-nine district-level mayors have also been arrested, including 13 in Istanbul.
Mr Tugay’s predecessor as mayor of Izmir, Tunc Soyer, who is currently also in prison on corruption-related charges, criticised the defection in a message written from the high-security facility where he is being held. “Do not bow your head, beautiful Izmir,” he wrote.
The Turkish government denies political motives in any lawsuits and says the judicial system is independent.
