As of: April 3, 2024, 7:03 p.m
By: Mark Stoffers
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According to unofficial results, Istanbul and other major cities are lost for Erdogan. The AKP suffers losses in the Turkish elections.
Update from April 2nd, 6:00 a.m.:
The AKP's historic defeat in the local elections has shaken up the political landscape in Turkey. However, political observers such as analyst Berk Esen point out that the opposition's success does not mean that Turkey is now more democratic. In his view, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is rather a competitive authoritarian regime in which elections are neither free nor fair. At the same time, he wrote on Platform
Erdogan's partner MHP is also one of the losers in the local elections in Turkey
Update from April 1st, 6:00 p.m.:
The MHP, the right-wing radical partner of the AKP government, is also among the losers in the local elections. In the 2019 local elections, the party received 7.31 percent of the nationwide votes and now only received 4.99 percent. Bahceli also announced consequences. “President Erdogan is the head of state and we will support him until the end,” Bahceli wrote in a statement. Bahceli also sees the defeat as a message from the voters and announces an “evaluation”. However, the MHP leader rules out early elections.
Government partner MHP announces consequences after defeat
Update from April 1st, 3:55 p.m.:
The president's AKP is drawing the first conclusions after the debacle in the local elections and therefore wants to address the economic problems. “Tackling inflation, both economically and socially, is our top priority. We will achieve this through the decisive implementation of the program announced last year,” writes Deputy President Cevdet Yilmaz on X. The first results will be seen as early as the second half of the year. Inflation in particular is driving more and more people in Türkiye into poverty. The inflation rate is currently around 67 percent.
Update from April 1st, 2:50 p.m.:
After all votes have been counted, the opposition party CHP remains the strongest force nationwide. According to the unofficial final result, the CHP is the strongest force with 37.76 percent. The AKP got 35.48 percent. The Yenid Refah Partisi has 6.19 percent, the DEM Parti has 5.7 percent, the MHP has 4.99 percent and the Iyi Parti has 3.77 percent. In his speech after midnight, President Erdogan had already admitted his defeat.
Results of the Turkish elections: Erdogan's opponents remain the strongest party - electoral council confirms CHP victory
Update from April 1st, 11:30 a.m.:
The High Electoral Council has announced the preliminary final results of the local elections. “According to the preliminary results, in the mayoral elections in Turkey, the CHP won 35 mayoral positions, the AK Party 24, the DEM Party 10, the MHP 8, the Yenid Refah Partisi 2, the BBP 1 and the İYİ Party 1.
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Preliminary final results of the Turkish elections announced by the High Electoral Council
In the 30 major cities, the CHP won 14 mayoral positions, the AKP 12, the DEM Party 3 and the Yenid Refah Partisi 1,” said the chairman of the High Electoral Council, Ahmet Yener. Provisional final results are also available in 44 provinces. “Accordingly, the CHP won 18, the AK Party 9, the MHP 8, the DEM Party 6, the BBP 1, the İYİ Party 1, the Yeniden Refah Partisi 1 provincial mayoral election.” Voter turnout was also 78.11 percent . 99.99 percent of the votes have now been counted.
Results of the Turkish elections: AKP suffers historic defeat after almost all votes have been counted
Update from April 1st, 11:30 a.m.:
It was only after midnight that President Erdogan stood in front of his supporters in Ankara and admitted defeat in the local elections. He said the voter's message had been understood. His top candidate for Istanbul, Murat Kurum, also ventured in front of the cameras late at night and admitted defeat. He also said the voter's message had been understood and lessons would be learned from it.
After 99.82 percent of the votes were counted, the opposition party CHP remains in first place nationwide with 37.74 percent. The ruling AKP party, on the other hand, only has 35.49 percent.
Turkish election results: Erdogan sees turning point after debacle in local elections
Update from April 1, 7:27 a.m.:
“Unfortunately, we did not achieve the results we wanted,” said Erdogan at the headquarters of his AKP in Ankara in front of an unusually quiet crowd. “We will of course respect the nation’s decision.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has conceded the opposition's historic victory in local elections. On Sunday he spoke of a “turning point” for his camp, which has been in power since 2002. With nearly 99 percent of the country's ballot boxes counted, Erdogan's Islamic conservative AKP suffered its worst electoral debacle in two decades. The largest opposition party, the social democratic CHP, declared itself the winner in Istanbul and Ankara, the country's largest cities. Final results are expected to be announced later on Monday.
Shortly before, the incumbent mayor of the largest city, Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, announced his re-election. “We are in first place with a lead of more than a million votes,” he told reporters. “We won the election,” he added, explaining that 96 percent of the ballot boxes had been counted. “Tomorrow is a new day of spring for our country.”
“Historic result” in the Turkish election: Erdogan’s opposition celebrates
Imamoglu's supporters had previously flocked to the city administration headquarters. The 52-year-old CHP politician surprisingly won the mayoral election in the metropolis in 2019. A large crowd gathered in front of the opposition party headquarters in Istanbul. Turkish flags were waved and torches lit to celebrate the result. In Ankara, the incumbent mayor Mansur Yavas of the CHP also declared himself the winner of the election. He told a cheering crowd that “those who were ignored have sent a clear message to those who run this country.”
CHP leader Özgür Özel said “voters voted to change the face of Turkey.” He added: “They want to open the door to a new political climate in our country.” It is a “historic result.” In addition to Izmir, the CHP stronghold and third-largest city in the country, and Antalya in southern Turkey - where opposition supporters celebrated the victory in the streets - the CHP also had a spectacular success in Anatolia. According to almost final results, the opposition party was also ahead in some provincial capitals long dominated by the AKP.
President Erdogan, who has been in power for 21 years, had made retaking the mayoralty of Istanbul for his AKP a key goal of the local elections. Before Imamoglu's election victory in 2019, Istanbul had been in the hands of the AKP and its predecessor parties for 25 years.
People celebrate in Istanbul after the elections in Turkey. Erdogan has admitted defeat. © Collage: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire // APAimages
Turkish election results: Erdogan admits defeat – AKP loses in Istanbul
Update from April 1st, 12:53 a.m.:
According to the preliminary results in the Turkish elections, the debacle for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is spreading further. Because now it's official. His party, the Islamic conservative AKP, can no longer achieve the declared main goal of the local elections in Turkey.
According to preliminary unofficial results, his party lost the mayoral election in the important metropolis of Istanbul. Incumbent Ekrem Imamoglu from the center-left CHP party achieved around 51 percent after almost all votes were counted and was therefore re-elected, as the state news agency Anadolu reported on Monday night.
Turkish election results: bitter defeat for Erdogan and AKP – “turning point”
Update from April 1st, 12:17 a.m.:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of a “turning point” for his camp after the preliminary partial results of the local elections in Turkey, which showed the opposition was ahead in many places. “Unfortunately, we did not achieve the results we wanted,” he told an unusually quiet crowd on Sunday at the headquarters of his Islamic conservative AKP in Ankara. The Turkish president said he would “respect the nation’s decision” after the results of the Turkish elections for his AKP.
According to preliminary results from the Turkish elections, Erdogan's party has suffered a massive loss of votes across the country. The strongest opposition party, the CHP, won the most provinces nationwide, according to the state news agency Anadolu. Observers called the outcome of the local elections in Turkey a historically bad result for the Islamic conservative AKP party.
Results of the Turkish elections: Erdogan with a bitter defeat in Istanbul – CHP wins spectacularly in Anatolia
The social democratic opposition party CHP declared itself and its incumbent mayors in the major cities of Istanbul and Ankara the winner. In addition to Izmir, CHP stronghold and third-largest city in the country, and Antalya in southern Turkey, a spectacular CHP victory also emerged in Anatolia according to the preliminary results of the Turkish elections. According to partial results, the opposition party was also ahead in local elections in some provincial capitals in Turkey, which had long been dominated by the AKP.
Before the Turkish elections, Erdogan made regaining the mayoralty of Istanbul for his AKP a main goal of the local elections in Turkey. The loss of the town hall in the economic metropolis of Istanbul in 2019 is considered one of his worst election defeats. Erdogan himself was mayor of the city of millions in the 1990s before he came to power nationally in 2003, first as prime minister and since 2014 as president. Last year, Erdogan was confirmed in office for a third and, according to current law, last mandate.
Turkish election results: Erdogan admits defeat of his AKP in local elections
Update from March 31, 11:53 p.m.:
It took President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a long time to appear in front of the cameras and comment on the dismal results of the Turkish election. At 12:30 a.m. (local time) the time had come and he spoke to his supporters about the poor performance of his AKP in the local elections in Turkey. In the capital Ankara, Erdogan and his wife Emine appeared before his supporters and surprisingly admitted their de facto defeat in the Turkish elections.
“We will stand tall. March 31 is not a defeat for us,” the president said. “The people give their message at the ballot box,” said Erdogan. The winner of the local elections is the people and Turkey. “I trust you and, God willing, I will continue to win together with you,” said the head of state after the defeat in the Turkish elections. Erdogan promised to help the new mayors in their work. In the next four and a half years his party will work on its mistakes.
The current nationwide results of the local elections in Turkey at a glance
Political party |
Result in percent |
|---|---|
CHP |
37.13 |
AKP |
36.14 |
DEM Parti (formerly HDP) |
5.84 |
Yenid Refah Partisi |
5.75 |
As of: 10:30 p.m |
Turkish election results: Istanbul becomes a disaster for Erdogan – CHP celebrates victory over AKP
Update from March 31, 10:53 p.m.:
In Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu will apparently remain in office after the results of the Turkish elections. His supporters are already gathering in the Sarachane district, where the mayor is scheduled to give his victory speech. People wave Turkish flags and celebrate the victory over President Erdogan and his AKP.
People are also celebrating in other Kurdish cities. Car convoys of the pro-Kurdish Dem Parti formed in Van. In Diyarbakir, Dem Parti supporters also gathered and chanted “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom). Police are said to have arrested pro-Kurdish party members in Van and Sirnak.
Turkey elections: CHP apparently wins in Ankara according to the results of the local elections
Update from March 31, 10:47 p.m.:
The CHP has declared itself the winner of the mayoral election in Ankara. “The elections are over, we will continue to serve Ankara,” said acting mayor Mansur Yavas after the first results of Turkey's elections in Ankara were available. This is reported by the
dpa
news agency . With 58.6 percent of the vote, Yavas is well ahead of his main rival from the ruling AKP party, who got 33.5 percent.
Turkey election results: Erdogan's challenger “could be the country's next president”.
Update from March 31, 10:32 p.m
.: Do the results of the Turkish elections herald the end of the Erdogan era? According to two political scientists, that's exactly what the local elections could look like.
Soli Özel, a professor at Kadir Has University, told
Tagesspiegel
that the Turkish opposition had had the problem of not finding a credible challenger to Erdoğan for 21 years. “Now she has one. Imamoğlu is the opposing candidate and perhaps the next president of this country.”
Murat Somer from Özyegin University in Istanbul told the
Tagesspiegel
that the opposition owes its success to the lessons learned from the defeat against Erdoğan in the presidential and parliamentary elections in May last year. At that time, Imamoğlu initiated a reform movement within the opposition, for which he and the CHP have now been rewarded.
Turkish election results: “End of the Erdogan era” – President “is a tired fighter”
“This may be the beginning of the end of the Erdoğan era,” Somer said. Erdoğan has fallen out with so many allies in recent years that he is now “in the corner”. If AKP MPs now have to expect to lose their seats in the next election in 2028, there could be new alliances and changes before this election date.
According to the current preliminary results, this probably means difficult times for Erdogan. The president suffered the worst setback since the AKP's defeat in the 2009 local elections. In addition, the president has to take care of the economy after the elections, which means painful decisions for AKP voters. “Erdoğan is a fighter – but he is a tired fighter,” Somer continued at the Tagesspiegel.
Turkey election results: Is the debacle coming for Erdogan in the local elections?
Update from March 31, 10:15 p.m.:
Is the debacle for Erdogan in the Turkish elections coming or not? 67 percent of the votes in the local elections in Turkey have now been counted. Accordingly, the CHP has 37.21 percent and is therefore still very narrowly ahead of the AKP (36.37 percent). The opposition party is the strongest force in the metropolises of Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Bursa.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not yet commented on the disappointing results of his AKP. The state news channel TRT Haber only shared the news that Erdogan was engaged in “telephone diplomacy”. The president spoke on the phone with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Uzbek President Shawkat Mirziyoyev and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov.
Results of the Turkish elections: Erdogan's party probably loses in Istanbul - AKP senses an upswing
Update from March 31, 9:14 p.m.:
Over 55 percent of the votes in the regional and local elections in Turkey have now been counted. And Erdogan's AKP party can have some hope again, even if Erdogan's party will probably not emerge victorious in Istanbul again. What, according to current results and current projections, looks like a bitter defeat in the Turkish elections could perhaps still end in a conciliatory manner.
Current figures show that the AKP is on the rise. Erdogan's party now has 36.71 percent nationwide, while the CHP has 37.66 percent of the vote. This is reported by the Turkish TV station
Haber-TV,
among others
.
Turkish election results: Erdogan faces debacle in local elections
First report from March 31st, 9:14 p.m.:
Istanbul - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party is threatened with a severe setback according to preliminary unofficial results in the local elections in Turkey. A bitter defeat for Erdogan's party is looming, especially in the metropolis of Istanbul with a population of millions.
But the preliminary results and projections also show a trend elsewhere that Erdogan probably doesn't like. The Turkish president's party is also losing support elsewhere, meaning that there are signs of a surprise across the country based on the current preliminary results of the Turkish elections.
Results of the Turkish elections: bitter defeat for Erdogan - CHP ahead of AKP
After 34 percent of the votes were counted, the CHP is also ahead of the AKP nationwide in local elections. In Bursa, the opposition party continues to expand its lead. There are signs of a change of government there for the first time in 20 years. “It is admirable that the results from the districts that did not vote for us in 2019 are very good,” CHP candidate Mustafa Bozbey told Turkish media in Bursa.
Results of the local elections in Turkey: Initial projections show setbacks for Erdogan in Istanbul
In particular, the recapture of Istanbul, which was the declared goal of Erdogan's party in the local elections in Turkey, seems to be more than just hanging in the balance, according to projections and preliminary results. After a good 40 percent of the votes were counted, incumbent Ekrem Imamoglu of the largest opposition party CHP received around 50 percent in the mayoral election, according to the state news agency Anadolu.
His challenger, the candidate of the Islamic conservative AKP, Murat Kurum, received 41.3 percent of the vote. The opposition-affiliated news agency Anka saw Imamoglu at around 57 percent after counting more than half of the votes.
Results and projections of the Turkish elections: Erdogan's party will probably also lose in Ankara and Izmir
According to preliminary results and projections, an even clearer success for the CHP appears to be emerging in the capital Ankara. The lead there is currently apparently around 20 percentage points. After counting around 20 percent of the votes, 55 percent went to CHP Mayor Mansur Yavaz. His AKP opponent was only able to collect 35 percent of the votes counted so far.
The CHP was also able to clearly assert itself in Izmir, the country's third largest city with over a million inhabitants. Izmir is traditionally a CHP stronghold. The opposition is also probably ahead in the tourist hotspot of Antalya and in Adana in the southeast of the country. Not entirely surprising results in the Turkish elections. What was much more surprising, however, was that the CHP has a very good chance of winning the mayor's office in the western Turkish industrial city of Bursa, which was previously governed by an AKP politician, in Sunday's election.
New projections also show the CHP in the lead in Bursa. The opposition party there has 38.9 percent. The AKP, which has previously ruled the metropolis with more than three million inhabitants, is at 37.4 percent.
Projections and results of the local elections in Turkey: AKP in the lead – setbacks for Erdogan
Nationwide, Erdogan's AKP was ahead of the CHP. It led in 46 of the 81 provinces, but according to previous projections and preliminary results of the counts on Sunday evening, it suffered heavy losses compared to the 2019 local elections.
The election took place against the backdrop of an increasingly difficult economic situation. Inflation, which reached 67 percent in February, is sapping people's purchasing power. Apartment rents, energy costs and even basic foodstuffs have become unaffordable for many people.
Erdogan's interference in monetary policy is considered one of the causes of the crisis: in order to stimulate the economy with cheap loans, the Turkish central bank had to keep interest rates low for years on Erdogan's instructions. It was only last summer that Erdogan turned things around and gave the central bank free rein to raise interest rates. Since then, the key interest rate has risen from eight to 50 percent.
Elections in Turkey: Projections and results indicate a significant loss of votes for Erdogan
Preliminary unofficial results indicated a nationwide loss of votes for the AKP compared to the results of the 2019 local elections. The first official results are expected later in the evening. Accusations of election manipulation were particularly loud in Kurdish cities. Erdogan apparently had soldiers vote there in the local elections.
Around 61 million people in 81 provinces were called upon to elect mayors, municipal councilors and other local politicians. A good ten months after Erdogan's re-election, the vote is seen as a mood test for the president and his AKP. (
with material from dpa and afp
)