The mayor said his wife would divorce him if he joined Erdoğan — and now he has given him the secularist stronghold

İzmir Mayor Cemil Tugay officially joined President Erdoğan's AKP party after previously stating there was no chance he would do so. Erdoğan pinned the party badge on him at a ceremony in Ankara. The opposition claims threats and blackmail were involved.

İzmir Mayor Cemil Tugay officially joined the AKP, the ruling party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, at a ceremony held today (Wednesday) in Ankara. Erdoğan himself pinned the party badge on Tugay. The move is considered a significant symbolic achievement for Erdoğan, as İzmir, Turkey's third-largest city with about 4.5 million residents, has been identified for decades with the secular and social-democratic camp and has never had an AKP mayor elected. Tugay was elected mayor in March 2024 as a candidate for the Republican People's Party (CHP) with 48.97% of the vote, a margin of more than 314,000 votes over the AKP candidate. Last June, he left the CHP amid the party's internal crisis and served as an independent mayor. The political irony is great given his previous statements: in August 2025 he said there was "not even a one-in-a-million chance" he would join the AKP, and in January 2026 he said in an interview that his mother would disown him and his wife would divorce him if he did so. Today, however, Tugay called Erdoğan a "great leader" and repeated a familiar saying of the president. The opposition claims the move cannot be separated from the pressure authorities are exerting on mayors from the opposing camp. Sources there claimed Tugay was subjected to "threats, blackmail, and pressures." Erdoğan dismissed the claims. According to data published by the Diken website, since the 2024 elections, six mayors of major cities from the CHP and 29 other local authority heads have been arrested. Political commentator Barak Esen said some of the mayors who crossed the lines did so "out of fear."