Erdogan warned his own party, the AKP, that if it does not correct its mistakes it will continue to melt like ice in the sun / The Islamist-conservative party led by Erdogan suffered a major setback in Sunday’s local elections

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned his own Islamist-conservative political party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), of the risk of losing even more popular support after Sunday’s failed municipal elections, blaming the party’s politicians for that they distanced themselves from the common people, the EFE agency reports on Wednesday according to Agerpres.

AKP founder and leader Erdogan attributed the party’s unexpected 11 percent drop in municipal elections compared to the presidential poll 10 months ago to rising prices, with inflation approaching 70 percent annually in March, as well as increasing the distance between power and population.

If the mistakes made are not corrected, the party will continue to “melt like ice in the sun,” the Turkish leader warned at a meeting of the AKP’s central executive committee on Tuesday evening. Erdogan has seen a steady rise in his political career since winning the Istanbul mayoralty in 1994, but Sunday’s defeat is the AKP’s heaviest since coming to power 22 years ago.

At this meeting dedicated to analyzing the success of the social-democratic People’s Republican Party (CHP), the largest opposition party at the national level and which won the town halls of 35 of the country’s 81 provinces on Sunday, Erdogan also drew attention to the presence reduced to the polls, many of the voters who last year voted for the AKP in the presidential elections are now choosing to stay at home in the municipal elections.

He admitted that his government has failed to help the population increasingly affected by the sharp increase in prices, especially pensioners whose pensions are far below the wages of the poor. Erdogan also spoke about the dissatisfaction of many voters who would like Turkey to stop commercial relations with Israel because of the war in the Gaza Strip, without this being the main cause of the loss of the election.

The Turkish president mentioned among these causes the “disease of arrogance” acquired by politicians from his own party. “The biggest enemy of a party born from the bosom of the people is to build walls between it and the citizens,” noted Erdogan.

“Either we correct our mistakes by admitting them, or we will continue to melt like ice in the sun. Either we do our job perfectly from start to finish, or we will not be able to avoid paying an even higher price”, concluded the Turkish leader.