Murat Kurum AKP's Istanbul mayoral candidate

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has officially declared that Murat Kurum, the former environment, urbanization and climate change minister, will be his Justice and Development Party's (AKP) candidate for the mayoral seat in Istanbul.

This announcement was made during a pivotal meeting where the AKP unveiled its initial slate of mayoral candidates for the upcoming local polls across Türkiye.

Born in 1976 in the capital Ankara, Kurum's career includes serving at the state mass housing agency TOKİ from 2005 to 2009 and later as the general manager of Emlak Konut, a real estate investment company affiliated with the now-defunct prime ministry. Following his ministerial role from 2018 to 2023, Kurum transitioned to becoming an Istanbul deputy for the AKP.

"We are appearing before our people with the candidates we have chosen to fulfill our promise of true municipalism," Erdoğan said, accusing the current administration of a lack of service.

"We, like all Istanbulites, see that Istanbul cannot tolerate losing another five years," he declared. "We will definitely take Istanbul out of the interregnum of the last five years."

The candidate presentation meeting held at the Haliç Congress Center on Jan. 7 also saw the unveiling of hopefuls for 10 other metropolitan cities and nominees for 15 cities without metropolitan status.

The party chose to nominate the current mayors in all of the metropolitan cities it currently governs, except for Samsun. This lineup includes Yücel Yılmaz in Balıkesir, Alinur Aktaş in Bursa, Osman Zolan in Denizli, Mehmet Sekmen in Erzurum, Tahir Büyükakın in Kocaeli and Hilmi Güler in Ordu.

Notably, in Samsun, Halit Doğan, the current mayor of Çarşamba district, will be the AKP's hopeful. In Aydın,...