In power for over two decades, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) gears up to mark the 23rd anniversary of its foundation by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his “Movement of the Virtuous.” The party will hold a major event in the capital, Ankara, on Wednesday to celebrate the occasion.
The party’s Deputy Chair Hamza Dağ told reporters on Tuesday that their family would grow with new members, including 15 mayors and two lawmakers who will join the party at the celebratory event at a new congress venue the party recently inaugurated.
The AK Party, which boasts the largest number of members, more than 11 million according to last year’s figures, successively defeated its main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is the oldest in Türkiye’s brief democratic history. On Wednesday, it will rally its supporters with events under the theme of “AK Party, Name of Hope, Action and Future.”
The events will certainly boost the morale of the party’s supporters after unprecedented losses in the March 31 municipal elections and failure to take back the mayoral seats of Istanbul and Ankara, which have been strongholds of the party in the past before the CHP won the 2019 and 2024 elections. The party, however, still retains a comfortable majority in Parliament and Erdoğan, although faced the first runoff in his political career, secured another four-year term last year. Relatively new to the Turkish political scene, the party proved the most successful of its ilk by retaining government for 22 years through consecutive election victories.
Dağ said the party that overcame various obstacles is also the party of the future while praising the leadership of Erdoğan, who led the mobilization of cadres to embrace more people.
He said that the anniversary events will be attended by founders, former ministers, former parliamentary speakers, along with, current cadres and a large number of supporters. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is scheduled to conclude the anniversary event with a speech. The events will be simultaneously held in Türkiye’s provinces at 2 p.m. local time, Dağ said.
“The AK Party has always been central to Turkish politics and will remain so. We will formally admit new members to the party, including lawmakers and mayors,” he said.
From political pundits to opponents, many thought that the AK Party, founded by former Virtue Party (FP) members, would be short-lived when it set out its course in Turkish politics in 2002.
Erdoğan himself was considered a political fad when he unexpectedly won the mayor’s seat in the Istanbul municipality elections.
Today, both the party and Erdoğan (first as prime minister and then as president) are viewed as the most enduring forces in the history of the republic. The party, which has never lost a general election, is commended for ending the era of coalition governments that stalled the country’s development.
The party made good on Erdoğan’s promise that nothing would ever be the same for Türkiye again and undertook major reforms and turned around the fortunes of the country, which had been struggling with an economic crisis when the AK Party came to power.
It scored its first major victory in the November 2002 elections by garnering more than 34% of the vote, although not under Erdoğan, who had a political ban in place. Instead, Abdullah Gül formed the first AK Party government. Months later, Erdoğan was elected as a lawmaker after the removal of his ban and picked to lead the government in 2003. The party faced its next test in the 2004 municipal elections, where it secured more than 41% of the vote. Since then, it has not conceded defeat in most municipalities in subsequent elections, except for losing strongholds in 2019.
