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Erdogan's AKP suffers upset in two key cities

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Supporters of the main opposition Republican People’s Party cheer in front of the party’s headquarters as they celebrate the municipal election results in Ankara, Turkey. — Reuters
Supporters of the main opposition Republican People's Party cheer in front of the party's headquarters as they celebrate the municipal election results in Ankara, Turkey. - Reuters

Ankara, Turkey - Losing the country's two major cities would be a stunning defeat for Erdogan.

By AFP

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Published: Mon 1 Apr 2019, 11:00 PM

Last updated: Tue 2 Apr 2019, 1:18 AM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party suffered a major upset on Monday after local election results showed it lost the capital Ankara and Istanbul after a decade and half in power.
Losing the country's two major cities would be a stunning defeat for Erdogan, a former Istanbul mayor himself, whose ability to win at the ballot box has been unparalleled in Turkish history.
Erdogan campaigned hard, portraying Sunday's vote for mayors and district councils as a fight for the nation's survival, but the election became a test for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) after Turkey slipped into a recession for the first time in a decade.
The opposition CHP party candidate for Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was leading by nearly 28,000 votes with most ballot boxes counted, Supreme Election Board (YSK) chairman Sadi Guven said. Imamoglu won almost 4.16 million votes while the AKP candidate, former premier Binali Yildirim, won 4.13 million.
In Ankara, opposition mayoral candidate Mansur Yavas had 50.89 per cent of votes ahead of the AKP's Mehmet Ozhaseki on 47.06 per cent, Anadolu state agency reported, with 99 per cent of ballot boxes counted. "Ankara has won. The loser in Ankara is Ozhaseki, dirty politics has lost," Yavas told supporters at a celebratory rally.


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