the proposal was announced and made public on 21 may 2015 by the republican people's party (chp), which nicknamed it the 'project of the century' and released a 7-minute video on "youtube" containing details about the proposal. the project was seen as an attempt by the chp to portray itself as a strong alternative to the governing justice and development party (akp) on infrastructure policy, since the akp has drawn strong support in the past for its investment in new roads, airports and planned infrastructure projects such as kanal istanbul. announced 17 days before the june 2015 general election, the project did not show a significant impact in the polls, with the chp continuing to trail the akp at 25-27%.