İzmir Mayor Cemil Tugay joined President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AK Party on Wednesday, shocking the Turkish left and handing the ruling party a symbolic prize it has failed to win in elections three times in a row.
Erdoğan presented Tugay — who ran for mayor as centre-left CHP party candidate two years ago — with an AK Party badge at the party's Ankara headquarters on Wednesday morning and welcomed him in a speech to MPs at the opening of the legislative year.