Turkey's main opposition, the Republican People's Party, won municipal elections in the country's largest cities - Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. After counting 99.82% of the ballots, the Republican People's Party received 37.74%, while the ruling Justice and Development Party received 35.49%.
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This is the worst defeat for the Justice and Development Party in the last two decades. The leader of the party and the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the election results are a turning point, not the end.
"First of all, the winners of the election marathon are not the candidates, but Turkey and the country's 85 million citizens, regardless of political affiliation. Unfortunately, nine months after our victory in the May 28 elections, we did not get the results we wanted in the local election test," said Erdogan, who was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994.
On Sunday, after the voting ended, the newly elected mayor of Istanbul from the Republican People's Party, Ekrem Imamoglu, announced that he had defeated the candidate of the ruling party by more than one million votes. According to the results, he received 51% of the votes.
“Those who do not understand the nation’s message will eventually lose. Tonight, 16 million citizens of Istanbul sent a message to both our rivals and the president," former businessman Imamoglu said in a speech to thousands of supporters. He has been involved in politics since 2008 and is considered one of the main opposition candidates in the next presidential elections.
In the capital, Ankara, the incumbent mayor and member of the Republican People's Party, Mansur Yavas, won with 60.35% of the vote, while in Izmir, the candidate of the same party, Camil Tugai, received 48.90%.
More than 61 million voters were registered in the March 31 elections. 206,845 polling stations were opened across the country. The voter turnout was 78.53%.
According to the state news agency Anadolu, the Republican People's Party won in 36 out of 81 provinces.
