Turkey’s Municipal Elections Polls Closing Show Sway In Public Opinion

The third current leading party is the Islamist party İYİ at just above 3% of votes. The main opposition party has gained a leading majority in Istanbul in this round of municipal elections in Turkey.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been mayor of the city since 2019 and has been reconfirmed, has declared himself “very pleased” with the election results. In an official statement, he claimed that the election shows that the opposition party and through his past term in the capital they have “have obtained the trust of our citizens and their belief in us.”
The Turkish municipal elections show a sway in public opinion

In the 2019 municipal elections, İmamoğlu won through a solid coalition made up of six main Turkish parties. That coalition fell apart after last year’s presidential election confirmed Erdoğan’s position.

Now, this comes as a double victory for İmamoğlu to be winning the municipal election in the capital city even while running with his party alone. For Erdoğan’s AKP, high hopes of overturning the 2019 victory of the opposition in Istanbul are crushed.

The Prime Minister, who was due to deliver a speech at 10:30 PM, has not commented on the results as of yet. The ruling party has been unable to shake off the post-pandemic economic crisis that caused rates of inflation to spike to 67% and interest rates to get as high as 50%, despite the Prime Minister’s diplomatic and global efforts for influence.

An eventful and heartfelt municipal election in Turkey
This round of elections has been rife with anomalies. These include power cuts in some polling stations during the count – although those same polling stations did not deliver a win for the Prime Minister’s party.

Supporters of various parties have been involved in major clashes at the stations where police had to intervene, and Kurdish voters are currently protesting in support of their party leaders in the capital.