Cemil Tugay has been mayor of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality since 2024. When he resigned from the CHP, he said he would join the new party Özgür Özel was forming. Özel said similar things. But around the same time, reports surfaced that Tugay’s communications with Özel were breaking down.
Since resigning from the CHP on June 18, Tugay, 59, has been the subject of near-weekly reports that he would join the AKP. He has never flatly denied any of them, instead saying only that he would 'continue as mayor independently.'
WAS IT TUGAY WHO GOT SOYER JAILED?
Cemil Tugay served as mayor of the Karşıyaka district of Izmir from 2019 to 2024. In 2024, as former mayor Tunç Soyer sought a second term in Izmir, the Özgür Özel-led party leadership at the time chose Tugay instead. That choice left a chill between Soyer and Özel. Later, when Soyer was arrested, attention turned once again to Tugay: among the evidence used against Soyer was a report submitted by Tugay's own municipality. Soyer himself has even suggested Tugay had a hand in his arrest. As the Turkish saying goes, the two men's 'meat was never cooked in the same pot.'
IZMIR HERE, TUGAY THERE
Cemil Tugay is a plastic surgeon by profession. But you don't need to live in Izmir to see that he hasn't run the mayoralty with a surgeon's precision. He is a mayor who openly clashed with workers and unions during the first strike he faced in office, and he is known for scrapping programs launched by his predecessor, Soyer. He was also elected on a lower vote share.
Yes, the number of CHP mayors defecting to the AKP is breaking records these days (see Capital Currents for more on this). But Izmir is a different kind of place: it has been governed by left-wing social democratic parties since 1989, and — due its anti-AKP stance — is even described as the 'stronghold of the left.' So an Izmir mayor joining the AKP would not be comparable to any other mayor doing so — it could well mean 'the end of his political career.' These days, reports that Tugay will 'join the AKP' are circulating once again, and once again he isn't flatly denying them. Tunç Soyer, meanwhile, has been in pretrial detention for months, and his indictment has only just been completed.
