Erdogan admits losing local elections to opposition, 2 APRIL

Erdogan admits losing local elections to opposition

2024-03-31 at 17:15Font

Shafaq News / The Turkish opposition announced on Sunday a “big victory” in municipal elections across the country, preserving Istanbul and Ankara, at the expense of the ruling Justice and Development Party led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The local elections are not the end for us, but it is a turning point,” Erdogan said in a speech, “we will hold ourselves accountable after the results of the local elections, and we will study the messages issued by the people,” referring to “the end of the elections that drained the economy.”

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency published official results on Sunday after sorting some ballot boxes, showing the progress of the opposition Republican People’s Party in major cities such as Izmir, Bursa, Antalya and Adana.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who belongs to the Republican People’s Party, has announced that he has retained his position since 2019.

“His party ranked first in Istanbul by more than a million votes,” Imamoglu told the press, Sunday evening, continuing: “We won the election.”

In Ankara, the mayor, who also belongs to the Republican People’s Party, Mansour Yavash, announced that he would retain his position while the counting of votes was still ongoing.

Besides Izmir, the country’s third city and the stronghold of the Republican People’s Party, and Antalya where opposition supporters began celebrating victory on the streets, the results suggest the CHP is on track for a victory in Anatolia.

The party leads the results of the partial counting in regional capitals long held by the AKP.

In contrast, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidates are advancing in several in the cities of Greater Anatolia (Konya, Kayseriya, Land of Rum) and the Black Sea (Riza, Trabzon), while pro-Kurdish HDP candidates are expected to win in major Kurdish-majority southeastern cities, most notably Diyarbakir.

Uzgor Ozil, head of the Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s largest opposition formation, also said that “voters chose to change Turkey’s face” after 22 years of dominance of the ruling Justice and Development Party, adding that voters “wanted to open the door to a new political climate in our country.”

https://www.shafaq.com/ar/سیاسة/ردوغان-يقر-بخسارة-الانتخابات-المحلية-لصالح-المعارضة