Partial results have Turkey’s opposition candidate and incumbent mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, leading in local elections according to local media.

Broadcaster NTV on Sunday said that the country’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) had nearly 51% with around 92% of ballots counted in the country’s largest city.

Opposition upbeat after early partial results

“We are in first position with a lead of more than a million votes … We have won the election,” Imamoglu told reporters at the CHP’s Istanbul headquarters.

Murat Kurum, the candidate of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s  Justice and Development Party (AKP), which rules nationally, had around 40%.

In Turkey’s capital Ankara, the CHP candidate Mayor Mansur Yavas was leading with 59% and the ruling party candidate had 32% with 85% of ballots counted.

Yavas declared victory, saying, “the elections are over, we will continue to serve Ankara.”      

The CHP was also ahead in Turkey’s third-largest city, Izmir and looked to be leading in 36 of the country’s 81 provinces, according to the preliminary results reported by state broadcaster TRT.

Across all provinces, the CHP was leading with 37.15% of the mayoral elections, with 75% of all ballot boxes opened.

Some 61 million people, including more than a million first-time voters, were eligible to cast ballots for all metropolitan municipalities, town and district mayorships as well as neighborhood administrations.

State-run Anadolu Agency reported that voter turnout was around 76%.

Repeat of 2019 on the cards?

In 2019, the CHP won in Istanbul and Ankara with the ruling party demanding a rerun of the Istanbul vote, claiming there had been irregularities. The CHP also managed to win the rerun in the key battleground city.

Earlier this month, Erdogan — who himself was mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998 — said the municipal elections would be his last. He has been in power since 2003 when he was elected prime minister and then president in 2014.

In 2017, a constitutional change abolished the office of prime minister, giving Erdogan full executive power.

In May last year, Erdogan fell short of a majority of votes in the first round of presidential elections. In 2014 and 2018, he won outright and there was no runoff vote.

kb/rc (AFP, Reuters)