Erdoğan tells his party to start preparing for elections

Photo: AA

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on his party members to start preparing for the next presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2023.

"We have about two years before the elections. I want you to seize every day and every moment of this time in the most efficient way," Erdoğan said at a meeting of the party's provincial heads today (July 8).

Erdoğan said all members of the AKP should go out there and meet people, listen to them and their problems and prepare for elections on the field.

The 2023 election is the last stop before "our civilization reaches its pinnacle," he said.

Erdoğan claimed that the opposition cooperates with outer powers who carry out "economic attacks" on Turkey, so that "We should get through this election safe and sound."

The president last week denied the rumors of early elections and efforts to promote early polls.

Survey: 61.4 percent want a snap election in Turkey

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Opposition leaders have been calling for a snap election for months now with the AKP and its ally Nationalist Movement Party's (MHP) votes are on the decline according to recent polls.

Also, two possible opposition candidates, İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, have a clear advantage over Erdoğan if the presidential election goes to the second round, according to multiple pollsters.

In the 2018 election, Erdoğan got 52.6 percent of the votes for the president and the AKP and the MHP's People's Alliance got 53.7 percent of the votes in the parliamentary election. (AS/VK)