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TURKEY-VOTE-RESULTS
Opposition candidate leads Istanbul mayor race: election chief
ANKARA, April 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Turkey’s opposition candidate for
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was leading Monday by nearly 28,000 votes with
most ballot boxes counted, Supreme Election Board (YSK) chairman Sadi Guven
said.
Results from Sunday’s ballot also showed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
AKP was set to lose the capital Ankara in what would be a major upset for the
ruling party in power for a decade and a half.
Imamoglu won 4,159,650 votes while the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
candidate and former premier Binali Yildirim garnered 4,131,761 votes in the
city.
Both candidates had claimed victory in the early hours of Monday following
a tightly contested race for the country’s largest city and economic hub and
with preliminary results showing them in a dead heat.
Procedures to challenge the vote continue, Guven said with 84 ballot boxes
left to the counted.
Erdogan campaigned hard portraying the vote for mayors and district
councils as a fight for the nation’s survival, but the election became a test
of AKP’s support after an economic slowdown hit Turkey.
With 99 percent of the ballot boxes counted early on Monday, opposition
candidate for Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavas was ahead with 50.89 percent of
votes and the AKP on 47.06 percent, Anadolu state agency reported.
Erdogan, whose ability to win repeatedly at the polls is unparalleled in
Turkish history, appeared more vulnerable with the economy in recession for
the first time in a decade, unemployment higher and inflation in double
digits.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1424 hrs