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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the upcoming round of local ballots will be the “final” election for him.
Citizens in every Turkish city, province and municipality are voting to elect mayors and councillors on March 31. Erdogan said that this will be the last vote in which he is involved.
“According to the law, this election is my last election,” he said on Friday at a meeting of the TÜGVA youth group in Istanbul.
The founder and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdoğan has been Turkey’s president since 2014 following a decade as the country’s prime minister.
Erdoğan said that the outcome of the local election will have a significant impact on his plans for political succession. “The result that comes out of this election will be a transfer of a legacy to the brothers who will come after me,” Erdoğan said. “That’s why we made the necessary preparations.”
Erdogan was re-elected for a second five-year term in a divisive election in May 2023.
