The Ruling party in Türkiye is starting preparing for the upcoming municipal elections

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun his preparations for the municipal elections that will be held on March next year, by mobilizing all the capabilities of the state and the media loyal to him to repeat the May victory, by winning in the major municipalities that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) won in the 2019 elections, the most important of which are Istanbul and Ankara.

Erdogan’s party, Justice and Development party (AKP), used to govern several of the major cities, during his remain in power in the past 22 years.

The leader of the Good Party (İyi), Meral Akşener, decided not to ally with the Republican People’s Party, in the upcoming elections.

Akşener’s decision surely will help, the ruling AKP party, and Erdogan, as he’s preparing for a greater goal, which is to change the constitution, and this is what he announced a few days ago.

The information talks about the possibility of Akşener supporting Erdogan’s new project within the framework of a political deal, which is what he did with the parties he won alongside him in the last elections, as long as they were all right-wingers, conservative, religious, nationalistic, and sometimes racist.

Akşener and her party, were among Erdogan’s staunchest enemies, as still several Turkish opposition bloc “jump-ship” might take place in the upcoming days, as some expect another political deal to take place between Erdogan and Ali Babacan and Ahmet Davutoğlu, who had previously defected from the Justice and Development Party, rebelled against Erdogan, and each one said against the other what cannot be said in politics, sociology, and psychology.

Thus, whether these deals are achieved or not, Erdogan is going steady to change the entire constitution and laws in the country.

Many political experts believed that, President Erdogan, cleverly took advantage of the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, after he expelled hundreds of thousands of followers of the Fethullah Gülen and his supporters from all state institutions and agencies, and then referred a series of constitutional amendments to a popular referendum in emergency circumstances, which helped him to pass these amendments that changed the political system from parliamentary to presidential, making him the absolute ruler of the country without competition and dispute.

The High Electoral Commission also didn’t care about the opposition parties’ objection to the sorting and counting process, after the electoral commissions approved about 2.5 million ballot papers not stamped with the Commission’s seal, and all of them were in favor of the amendment, which was supported by 52.5% of the citizens’ votes.

The Commission also rejected the opposition’s objection to its approval of President Erdogan to nominate himself for the third time in the recent elections, which is prohibited by the constitution, which limits the presidential term to only two times.

The Commission also did not care about the opposition and citizens’ objection to the election of Erdogan as President of the Republic, as he doesn’t have a university degree, which is also required by the Constitution.

All these facts and developments seem to encourage President Erdogan in his largest and most important project to change the entire constitution.

This time, to ensure that he remains in power forever as long as he lives.

The opposition points to President Erdogan’s efforts to reconcile with several countries in the region, and keep his good relations with Russia, in order to return to the “Zero problems” policy.

According to several Turkish opposition officials, what Erdogan seeks is to be re-elected again in the 2028 elections for two new terms of five years each, not counting the previous three terms, so that he will remain in power until the year 2038, at which time he will be 84 years old, and that of course, if his health conditions allow him to continue, as he had previously suffered from colon cancer.

As these conversations continue at the political and popular levels, some circles aren’t neglecting to bet on the name of the candidate to succeed Erdogan, and it may be his son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar, the husband of his daughter Sumaya, whom some nominate to succeed her father.

All of this doesn’t mean that remaining in power is President Erdogan’s only goal.

Rather, there are other agendas in his calculations, the most important of which is getting rid of the ideological thought of the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which is preparing to celebrate its centenary on October 29.

Conversations from religious circles close to and loyal to Erdogan came daily through the media and social networks about the necessity of establishing a religious system based on Islamic law, to pave the way for President Erdogan to present his ideas for discussion during the preparation of the new constitution, provided that he gets rid of its first four provisions, the most important of which are those that confirm the secularism of the Turkish state.

The bet remains on the position of the Turkish people, who no one knows if and how the entire Turkish and Ottoman history didn’t witness any popular revolution.

The question is, how the Turkish people will react and are they going to confront Erdogan’s projects not only to remain in power but to get rid of the secular Türkiye.

Everyone knows that without this system, Türkiye will find itself in a political, social, intellectual, ideological, national, and religious conflict that will create many difficult problems for the country, which will undoubtedly be in Erdogan’s favor in the absence of political and popular opposition, after Erdogan has tightened his control over all state institutions, facilities, and agencies.

The most important of which is the army, which was the weapon of secularists and is now in the service of the Turkish president.