In Turkey, Erdogan dealt a major electoral blow with the opposition party winning major cities

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Istanbul
CNN
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Turkey's local elections, which took place on Sunday, marked a major defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party, with the main opposition party claiming victory in major cities including Istanbul and Ankara.

Turkey held nationwide elections on Sunday to choose city mayors, mayors and other local officials who will hold their positions for the next five years. The setback came for the ruling party after Erdogan He was re-elected president In the fiercely contested May elections, the opposition leader was defeated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu In the upcoming runoff. After his presidential victory, Erdogan was looking to reclaim the cities lost to the opposition in 2019.

Preliminary official results showed Turkey's Supreme Election Board said the opposition Republican People's Party won 49 out of 81 municipalities, including 14 out of the country's 30 urban areas.

With 99.8% of the votes counted, the unofficial results showed Erdogan winning Main political rival Ekrem Imamoglu The CHP was re-elected as mayor of Istanbul with 51.1% of the vote, according to Turkish broadcaster TRT. Nationally, the Republican People's Party won the largest number of votes, with 37.7%.

In the capital, Ankara, the Republican People's Party candidate and current mayor, Mansur Yavaş, received 60.4% of the votes. In Izmir, Cemil Tugay of the Republican People's Party won with 48.9% of the votes.

“Today the period of one-man rule has ended,” Imamoglu, a 53-year-old businessman-turned-politician, told cheering crowds in Istanbul on Sunday evening.

He added: “As we celebrate our victory, we are sending a resounding message to the world: the decline of democracy ends now.” The mayor of Istanbul wrote on Monday. “Istanbul stands as a beacon of hope, a testament to the resilience of democratic values ​​in the face of growing authoritarianism.”

For Erdogan, Istanbul is the strategic and personal crown jewel that he was determined to recapture in Sunday's election. The city was run for 25 years by religious-leaning parties – first by the Welfare Party, of which Erdogan was a member, and then by the Justice and Development Party – until the secular Republican People's Party won the mayor's office in 2019 under İmamoğlu.

The Justice and Development Party lost ten districts in Istanbul to its competitors in the last elections. Beyoğlu, the district of Istanbul where Erdogan was born, lost to the CHP.

Erdogan was not a candidate in these elections, but the vote was largely seen as a test of the AKP's ability to win back the cities it lost in the 2019 elections.

The 70-year-old leader admitted defeat On behalf of his party, saying that he intends to respect the will of the Turkish people.

“Unfortunately, we were not able to get the result we wanted and hoped for in the local election test,” Erdogan said in a speech on Monday at the Justice and Development Party. Party headquarters in Ankara. He added that regardless of the results, “the winner of these elections is first and foremost our democracy, the national will, and all 85 million people, regardless of their political views.”