Major defeat for Erdogan in Turkey’s local elections: Secular opposition wins national political vote and all major cities

UPDATE Monday 10.30: The opposition party CHP won the local elections in the political vote (voting for lists in local and regional councils) over the ruling party AKP, according to Daily Sabah. Thus, the CHP registered 37.7% of the votes, compared to 35.5% for the AKP.

In terms of big cities, the CHP kept all the metropolises it administered (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya) and won Bursa.

UPDATE Monday 7.15: The counting of almost 99% of the votes at the national level confirms that the Turkish opposition has caused the AKP (Islamist-conservative) party of the head of state the biggest electoral defeat in the last two decades.

The main opposition party, CHP (Social Democrat), claimed victory in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities, and captured many others, such as the port of Izmir or Bursa, a large industrial city in the northwest under the control of AKP since 2004.

UPDATE 22:33 With 60% of the votes counted, the CHP leads in the mayoral elections in the big cities – Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya, Adana, but in the political vote (provincial councils) the CHP and the AKP are practically tied 37.4% – 36 ,5%. As for Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, the current mayor from the opposition party, leads with 50.4% with 75% of the votes counted. In Akara, Mansur Yavaş leads with 59% to 51% of the votes counted, and in Izmir – Cemil Tugay has 48.2% with 69% of the votes counted.

the initial news

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP, which describes itself as conservative-democratic) lost ground in Sunday’s local elections in the face of a clear advance by the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social democratic). and seems unable to regain Istanbul, reports EFE, quoted by Agerpres.

With 40% of the votes counted in Istanbul, the incumbent mayor, social democrat Ekrem Imamoglu, has an 8-point lead over his AKP rival, former environment minister Murat Kurum, and passes 50% of the vote.

In addition, after counting 30% of the national ballots, the CHP leads in 36 provinces, compared to the AKP’s 23. This is a striking reversal from the situation 15 years ago, when Erdogan’s party dominated most of the map and the CHP was confined to the western periphery and the Mediterranean coast.

The CHP even leads in some regions of Anatolia, which were until now strongholds of the AKP, and in the capital Ankara its lead exceeds 20 points.

Also, the fundamentalist Islamist party Yeniden Refah “stole” votes from the AKP, with which it was allied in the last elections, and is likely to rule in two provinces in central and southern Anatolia.

The left-wing pro-Kurdish party DEM, formerly the People’s Democratic Party (Halklarin Demokratik Partisi, HDP), is holding steady in its fiefdoms in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, where it leads 11 provinces by solid margins.

In terms of total votes, the CHP is slightly ahead of the AKP for the first time in two decades, after being outscored by Erdogan’s party by almost 15 points in the last two local elections.