Two days before the local elections on 31 March, police barriers were placed around the municipality service building in Mersin’s central Akdeniz district.

The reason for the barriers, which were placed upon Akdeniz mayor Mustafa Gültak's request to the police, is not yet known.

Municipal employees were not allowed to enter the building for a while in the morning.

After being allowed inside, the employees were not allowed to go out during working hours.

Özgür Çağlar, DEM Party Member of Akdeniz Municipal Council, reacted strongly to this situation on social media, saying, "Which corruption documents and papers are you smuggling? What is this rush? No cleaning operation can clean what you have done."

Akdeniz Municipality

The Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which has taken its place on the political scene with a democratic, ecological and women's libertarian paradigm and aims to realise this in a wider periphery with the 31 March local elections, has accelerated its election activities. One of the centres where the party, which will enter the elections in many cities of Turkey as well as Kurdistan with its co-mayoral candidates determined on the basis of urban consensus, has a stronghold is the Akdeniz district of Mersin.

DEM Party's candidates Nuriye Arslan and Hoşyar Sarıyıldız are running for Akdeniz Municipality for this year’s local elections.

The district, which has a cosmopolitan structure due to the coexistence of many different ethnic groups, also has a significant labour potential.

The municipality of Akdeniz, which was governed by Fazıl Türk, the candidate of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) between 2009 and 2014, was won by Fazıl Türk and Yüksel Mutlu, the party's co-mayoral candidates, in the local elections held in 2014.

One of the municipalities to which the government appointed trustees was Akdeniz Municipality. On 18 December 2016, District Governor Hamdi Bilge Aktaş was appointed as trustee in place of the co-mayors who were dismissed by a decision of the Ministry of Interior. The first action of the trustee was to change the name of the municipality's İştar Women's Counselling Centre to "Directorate of Women and Family Services".

In the local elections held in May 2019, the municipality came under the administration of AKP candidate Mustafa Gültak with a 7 percent vote difference. Gültak, who did not lag behind the trustee, made the Directorate of Women and Family Services completely dysfunctional by appointing a male director. Gültak transferred the Women's Guesthouse, which was also built with municipal funds, to the Ministry of Family and Social Services for 25 years on the grounds of lack of budget.

Gültak further transferred Yılmaz Güney Park, which was built during the DBP period, to the Ministry of Youth and Sports to be used as a dormitory. The AKP mayor was authorised to borrow 50 million liras in July 2022 at a municipal council meeting where HDP members were not present. When the municipality's debt reached 72 million liras, 14 immovable properties on 61 acres, including mosques, schools and health centres, were transferred to the Social Security Institution (SGK).

DEM Party's Co-Mayoral candidates Nuriye Arslan and Hoşyar Sarıyıldız, who are aiming to win Akdeniz by a margin again after 8 years, aim to reintroduce the "equal service to all" model that the people of the district have stayed away from in the past 8 years.

Nuriye Arslan migrated to Mersin from Muş with her family in 1978 when she was only 10 years old. Dedicating her life to human rights and women's rights defence, Arslan started her political career in the Yenişehir district administration of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and later served as district co-chair. Arslan, who was elected as a member of the Akdeniz Municipality Council in 2019 and had an active profile, was nominated as a co-mayoral candidate by the DEM Party in the 31 March local elections this year after gaining the sympathy and trust of the people.

Born in 1991 in Şırnak’s Cizre district, Hoşyar Sarıyıldız migrated to Mersin with his family in 1994. After graduating from Istanbul University Faculty of Law, Sarıyıldız became co-chair of the Mersin branch of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) in 2016. In 2022, Sarıyıldız was elected as HDP Mersin Provincial Co-chair and now became the other co-mayoral candidate of the DEM Party for Akdeniz Municipality with the support of the people in the primary election.