lit a candle 3h agoSaw this come across my feed this morning with coffee before work and it stopped me cold, forty two years old with three kids. I don't know much about Turkish local politics but I watched a travel show on Istanbul last year that spent a whole segment on Üsküdar, the ferries, the old mosques, and it stuck with me. Terrible way to go, on the road to represent his city.
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Dündar Ziya Gültekin was a Turkish local politician of the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) who served as acting mayor of Üsküdar Municipality in Istanbul. He died on 15 October 2026, aged about 42 or 43, after a multi-vehicle traffic accident on the Anadolu Motorway near Düzce while travelling…
Dündar Ziya Gültekin was a Turkish local politician of the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) who served as acting mayor of Üsküdar Municipality in Istanbul. He died on 15 October 2026, aged about 42 or 43, after a multi-vehicle traffic accident on the Anadolu Motorway near Düzce while travelling to Ankara for a Union of Municipalities of Turkey vice-presidency election.
Gültekin was born in 1983 in Üsküdar, the Istanbul district he later helped to govern. After studying at the Istanbul University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, he graduated in public administration from Anadolu University. He entered politics young, joining the AK Parti Üsküdar youth branch in 2002. Between 2002 and 2008 he held various youth posts, then chaired the district youth branch from 2008 to 2012. From 2012 to 2019 he served as an AK Parti Üsküdar district deputy chairman across the fourth, fifth and sixth terms. He also led election coordination work for the 24 June 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections and for the 31 March 2019 local elections.
In the local elections of 31 March 2019 he was elected a Üsküdar municipal councillor. From 2019 to 2025 he was AK Parti group deputy chair on the municipal council. He again held election coordination roles for the May 2023 general elections and the 31 March 2024 local elections. Outside party office he was general secretary of the 15 Temmuz Derneği, an association linked to commemorating the 2016 coup attempt, from 2016 to 2024. He worked in free trade, spoke English, and was married with three children.
Gültekin came to wider notice in early September 2026, after Üsküdar's elected mayor, Sinem Dedetaş, was arrested and removed from office pending investigation. On about 3 September 2026 the municipal council elected him acting mayor as the candidate of the ruling Cumhur İttifakı (People's Alliance), returning the district administration to AK Parti control. He held the post for a little over a month, managing routine municipal work including flood response during heavy Istanbul rains.
On 15 October 2026 his car was involved in a chain collision of three vehicles on the Ankara-bound Anadolu Motorway at Kaynaşlı Sarıçökek in Düzce. Several others were injured. Gültekin was taken to a private hospital but could not be saved. AK Parti Düzce provincial chairman Hasan Şengüloğlu announced the death and told reporters that all medical efforts had been made; he said no visible crash trauma was found and that Gültekin was assessed as having had a heart attack from the shock of the accident. Tributes followed from senior AK Parti figures, including deputy chairman Faruk Acar and the party's Istanbul organisation, who offered condolences to his family and to the people of Üsküdar.
Biography adapted from Üsküdar Municipality biography, BBC News Türkçe, Anadolu Agency via Milliyet, and news reports.
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1by People Forever
same, that Istanbul episode was beautiful, this is so sad