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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans ruling party led Sundays mayoral elections but suffered setbacks as the opposition regained hold of the capital Ankara and made significant inroads in other parts of Turkey. The elections, which the Turkish strongman had depicted as a fight for the countrys survival, were largely seen as a test of his support amid a sharp economic downturn.

Both the ruling party and the opposition claimed victory in the neck to neck race in Istanbul.

Erdogans conservative, Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, or AKP, took 44 percent of the votes in the elections after 99% of the more than 194,000 ballot boxes were counted, according to the official Anadolu Agency. The secular, main opposition party, the Republican Peoples Party, or CHP had 30 percent.

The CHPs mayoral candidate for Ankara, Mansur Yavas, however, won control of Ankara after 25 years of rule by the AKP and a predecessor party. The 63-year-old lawyer received nearly 51 percent of the votes, according to Anadolu. The CHP and its allies also posted gains elsewhere, increasing the number of city mayoral seats from 14 in the previous local elections in 2014 to 20, according to the preliminary results.

History is being written in Ankara, said deputy CHP leader Haluk Koc, while thousands of supporters celebrated outside the partys headquarters in Ankara.

Former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, the ruling partys candidate for mayor of Istanbul declared victory even though the race in Turkeys largest city and commercial hub was too close to call. Yildirim garnered 48.70 percent of the votes against the opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglus 48.65 percent, according to Anadolu, which drew criticism for failing to update results in Istanbul after Yildirims declaration.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu rebuked Yildirim for declaring victory in Istanbul in haste and claimed his party had now control of Turkey three largest city: Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Imamoglu said he had won Istanbul by more than 29,000 votes, according to results tallied by his party.

Erdogan attaches great importance to Istanbul where he began his rise to power as its mayor in 1994. He has said at campaign rallies that whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey. He refrained from declaring victory in the city of 15 million people.

Ankara was considered the main battleground of the race, where a former government environment minister, Mehmet Ozhaseki, ran for mayor under the banner of Erdogan and his nationalist allies. The ruling party accused his opponent Yavas of forgery and tax evasion. Yavas said he is the victim of a smear campaign.

Ozhaseki and his dirty politics have lost, Yavas said in a victory speech.

Sundays elections were a first test for Erdogan since he won re-election under a new system of government that gave the presidency expanded powers. Erdogan campaigned tirelessly for AKPs candidates, framing the municipal elections as a matter of national survival. He also portrayed the countrys economic woes as attacks by enemies at home and abroad.

Those who have tried to bring our country on its knees by damaging our peoples unity and togetherness, have once again been dealt a blow, Erdogan said, noting that the party had emerged as the winner nationwide by a large margin.

The voting was marred by scattered election violence that killed at least four people and injured dozens of others across Turkey.

Years of economic prosperity provided Erdogan and his party with previous election victories. But the race for 30 large cities, 51 provincial capitals and hundreds of districts were held as Turkey grapples with a weakened currency, a double-digit inflation rate and soaring food prices.

The high stakes of the local contests were brought into stark display with the deaths of two members of the Islamic-oriented Felicity Party, a small rival of the presidents Justice and Development Party. Felicitys leader, Temel Karamollaoglu, alleged a polling station volunteer and a party observer were shot by a relative of a ruling party candidate.

The killings werent caused by simple animosity, but happened when the volunteers tried to enforce the law requiring ballots to be marked in private voting booths instead of out in the open, Karamollaoglu tweeted.

Two other people were killed in fighting in the southern city of Gaziantep. Fights related to local elections in several provinces also produced dozens of injuries, Anadolu reported. Election campaigning was highly polarized, with Erdogan and other officials using hostile rhetoric toward opposition candidates.

Erdogans ruling party had renewed an alliance with the countrys nationalist party to increase votes. Opposition parties also coordinated strategies and put forward candidates under alliances in an effort to maximize the chances of unseating members of the AKP.

Erdogans supporters expressed dismay at losing the capital.

We did not think that we would lose Ankara in this election, said Mehmet Akcam, 18. Ankara will see the consequences of what it did.

The pro-Kurdish, Peoples Democratic Party appeared to have regained seats in several districts in Turkeys mostly-Kurdish southeast region where Erdogans government had replaced elected mayors with government-appointed trustees, alleging that the ousted officials had links to outlawed Kurdish militants.

However, the party lost control of two key cities in the region.

The pro-Kurdish party had sat out critical mayoral races in major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, with the aim of sending votes to a rival secular opposition party to help challenge Erdogans party.

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Turkish President Erdogans ruling party dealt a blow, loses ...

Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP on Tuesday appealed against results in Istanbul and Ankara following a weekend election after tallies showed the ruling party lost both key cities.

Erdogan's AKP and coalition partner won more than 50 percent of votes nationwide in Sunday's local ballot, but defeat in both Turkey's capital and its economic hub would be a setback after the party's decade and a half in power.

The AKP appeals with electoral authorities, who have two days to decide whether the claims of irregularities have merit, may signal more ruling party challenges to the surprise opposition victories.

"We have filed our objections with the electoral authorities in all 39 districts," AKP's Istanbul chief Bayram Senocak told reporters. "We have identified irregularities and falsifications."

He said the party had found an "excessive" difference between votes cast at ballot stations for their candidate and the data sent to electoral authorities.

Hakan Han Ozcan, AKP's Ankara chairman, told reporters they were also filing an appeal in 25 districts of the capital. Anadolu state news agency said results showed CHP opposition candidate Mansur Yavas with 50.93 percent of votes against 47.11 percent for the AKP.

Istanbul, the largest city in the country, was a key prize for Erdogan and he had fielded former premier and loyalist Binali Yildirim as candidate for mayor.

But Istanbul was a very tight race and both Yildirim and the opposition CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu claimed victory in the early hours of Monday when tallies showed them in a dead heat.

- Symbolic gesture -

Electoral authorities on Monday announced Imamoglu was ahead by 28,000 votes with nearly all ballot boxes tallied, prompting AKP officials to challenge to the result.

But AKP deputy chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz later on Tuesday claimed there was now a difference of 20,509 between Imamoglu and Yildirim during a press conference.

"The difference continues to fall," Yavuz said in Istanbul, adding that the election in the city was the "most flawed in our democratic history". "There are many errors, irregularities," he said.

Imamoglu had 48.79 percent of the votes while Yildirim had 48.52 percent, Anadolu reported on Tuesday, citing preliminary results.

Imamoglu on Tuesday travelled to Ankara to lay flowers at the mausoleum of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in a highly symbolic gesture Erdogan often does himself soon after his election wins.

The defence ministry later issued a statement criticising the visit. "The ceremony was not in compliance with the ceremonial procedures and principles," it said, adding that relevant staff had been given warnings.

"Had the other party won, I would have said 'congratulations Mr Binali Yildirim', which I do not say because I am the one who won," Imamoglu told reporters.

"They are behaving like a kid who has been deprived of his toy."

AKP party spokesman Omer Celik on Monday had said they had found discrepancies between reports from polling stations and vote counts in both Ankara and Istanbul.

Erdogan, himself a former Istanbul mayor, had campaigned hard in the city. But the ruling party may have been stung by the economy with Turkey in recession for the first time since 2009 and inflation in double digits.

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Erdogan party appeals Istanbul, Ankara results after Turkey vote

Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP suffered a blow in Sunday's local election with the ruling party set to lose the capital Ankara and risking defeat in the country's economic hub Istanbul.

Losing Turkey's two major cities would be a clear setback for Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) who won every vote in a decade and a half in power thanks in part to economic growth.

Erdogan portrayed the vote for mayors and district councils as a fight for Turkey's survival, but the election was a test for the AKP as an economic slowdown took hold after a collapse of the lira currency.

With 99 percent of the ballot boxes counted, the joint opposition candidate for Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavas was winning with 50.89 percent of votes and the AKP on 47.06 percent, Anadolu state agency reported citing preliminary results.

In Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, the race for mayor was deadlocked with the AKP candidate claiming victory with 48.70 percent of votes, but his opponent on 48.65 percent also saying he had won, after almost all ballot boxes were counted there.

The last results published by Anadolu gave the AKP a lead of just 4,000 votes and the ruling party said it planned to challenge tens of thousands of ballots it considered invalid in both of the major cities.

Speaking to thousands of supporters in Ankara, Erdogan portrayed the election as a victory for AKP, which along with coalition partner, the rightwing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), won more than 50 percent of the votes nationwide. But he did not refer directly to the loss of Ankara.

"If there are any shortcomings, it is our duty to correct them," Erdogan told supporters. "Starting tomorrow morning, we will begin our work to identify our shortcomings and make up for them."

He suggested if his party lost in Istanbul, they would still control district councils even if the opposition held the mayor's office.

Sunday's poll was the first municipal ballot since Turks approved constitutional reforms in 2017 to create an executive presidency that gave Erdogan wider powers after 16 years in office.

But Erdogan, whose ability to win continuously at the polls is unparalleled in Turkish history thanks to support among more pious, conservative Turks, was more vulnerable with the economy in recession, unemployment higher and inflation in double digits.

- Ankara fireworks -

For his supporters, Erdogan remains the strong leader they believe Turkey needs and they tout the country's economic development over the years he and the AKP have been in power.

But rights activists and even Turkey's Western allies say that under Erdogan's leadership, democracy has been eroded, particularly after a failed 2016 coup that led to tens of thousands of people being arrested.

Much of the AKP's success has been down to Erdogan's perceived economic prowess, but days before the vote, the Turkish lira was sliding again, provoking memories of the 2018 currency crisis that badly hurt Turkish households.

In Ankara, Yavas -- the candidate for both the opposition Republican People's Party or CHP and the nationalist Good Party -- claimed victory in a large rally full of supporters waving red Turkish flags and setting off fireworks.

"No one has lost. Ankara has won. All of Ankara has won, hand in hand," he told supporters.

Yavas had been slightly ahead in some recent opinion polls before the election.

"Erdogan is known with his success in the local elections and his model of government is highly based on his local experience," Emre Erdogan, a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University and no relation to the president.

"These losses will harm his reputation as a good local politician."

- Istanbul dead heat -

In Istanbul, a city where Erdogan had sometimes described victory as like winning Turkey itself, the race had been very tight. Erdogan fielded one of his loyalists, former prime minister Binali Yildirim, in a push to win the city.

Erdogan, who began his own political career as Istanbul mayor, personally campaigned hard across Turkey, often with several rallies a day, even though he was not on the ballot. He was often rallying in Istanbul's districts.

"We have won the election in Istanbul. We thank Istanbul's residents for the mandate they have given us," Yildirim told supporters as final tallies were arriving.

But his opponent Ekrem Imamoglu dismissed Yildirim's claim as an attempt to manipulate opinion.

"I would like to announce to Istanbul's residents and all of Turkey that our numbers show that it is clear we won Istanbul," Imamoglu said in a speech in the early hours of Monday.

Looking to galvanise his base among conservative Turks, the president cast the election as a matter of survival, attacking opposition candidates by branding them as linked to PKK Kurdish militants.

Observers say that with most media pro-government, opposition parties campaigned at a disadvantage because Erdogan's daily rallies dominated TV coverage.

The opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has refused to field candidates in several cities, saying the elections are unfair. Some of its leaders have been jailed on terror charges, accusations they reject.

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Erdogan's ruling AKP suffers setback in Turkey's local election

ISTANBUL President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confronted the prospect of a stunning political defeat on Monday, as local voting in Turkey showed his party had lost the capital, Ankara, and possibly Istanbul, its largest city and his key base of support for many years.

The results of the municipal balloting on Sunday from around the country was a telling barometer of Mr. Erdogans weakened standing with voters, as Turkeys economy has fallen into a recession and he has assumed sweeping new executive powers.

Mr. Erdogan was not conceding defeat on the results in Istanbul, which were still unofficial. But the head of the High Election Council said the opposition mayoral candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, was leading the Istanbul race by 27,806 votes, with only 24,000 remaining ballots to be counted.

The mathematics of the issue is over, Mr. Imamoglu told a news conference, asserting there was no way that the candidate of Mr. Erdogans Justice and Development Party, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, could catch up.

If the Istanbul results are confirmed, the Justice and Development Party is likely to appeal to the High Election Council.

Mr. Erdogan claimed victory over all in the elections, pointing to results that showed his party 15 points ahead of the opposition Republican Peoples Party in districts nationwide.

But for the first time in his political career, Mr. Erdogan was tasting defeat not only in mayoral races in the center of Turkish political power, Ankara, but his hometown, Istanbul, the countrys business center.

Please do not be heartbroken with this result, he told supporters in an address Sunday evening. We will see how they are going to administer.

Rusen Cakir, a veteran commentator, said on Twitter that the turnaround was as historic as Mr. Erdogans arrival on the political stage, when, as an Islamist and former political prisoner, he first won the mayorship of Istanbul.

The election today is as historic as the local election in 1994, Mr. Cakir said. Its the announcement of a page that was opened 25 years ago and is now being closed.

If Mr. Erdogans candidate loses the Istanbul race, it would be a severe blow to his party, which after 17 years in power has been showing a decline in popularity.

While losing Istanbul would be a nuclear defeat for Erdogan, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, losing Ankara, which is shorthand for political power and government, is a pretty significant loss.

In a sign of how seriously he regarded these elections, Mr. Erdogan held up to eight campaign rallies a day across the country, taking center stage in the municipalities as he portrayed the vote as a matter of national survival and a chance to cement his administration in perpetuity.

The declining economy was at the forefront of voters concerns. After years of impressive growth, Turkey entered a recession in March. Unemployment is over 10 percent, and up to 30 percent among young people. The Turkish lira lost 28 percent of its value in 2018 and continues to fall, and inflation has reached 20 percent in recent months.

Investment analysts reported that Turkey was depleting its international reserves to bolster the lira in the run-up to the election. Finance Minister Berat Albayrak promised to announce a package of new financial measures after the election, but investment confidence remains weak.

The campaign showed Erdogans desperation to win, said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is vulnerable because of his declining votes.

While Mr. Erdogan remains by far the most popular politician in the country, his party failed to secure a majority in parliamentary elections in June and was forced into an alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party. A referendum in 2017 that gave him sweeping new authority over the legislature and the judiciary was approved by just a narrow majority of Turks.

Even pro-government newspaper columnists warned that corruption and cronyism in the municipalities were turning voters away from the ruling party. Opinion polls showed that a larger percentage of voters than usual remained undecided right up to the election, which officials of his party took as a sign of unhappiness among the electorate.

Opposition candidates offered change and promised to create jobs, improve education and bolster social services. And some were blistering in their criticism of Mr. Erdogan.

A former deputy prime minister to Mr. Erdogan, Abdullatif Sener, said that while the economy was tanking, Mr. Erdogan was building not only a second but also a third presidential palace, and spending millions to fly around on his presidential plane.

Municipal elections usually draw little notice outside Turkey. But the local votes for mayors, municipal councils and neighborhood administrators was seen as critical to Mr. Erdogans grip on power.

The municipalities represent the core of his working-class, conservative power base and a source of income for his party, said Aykan Erdemir, a former member of Parliament and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research institute in Washington.

Mr. Erdogan began his career as the mayor of Istanbul, and built his popularity on providing local services like garbage collection and mass transport.

The president intervened personally in the race for mayor of Istanbul, pushing his longtime ally Mr. Yildirim to run when the race promised to be close. He picked another former minister to run for mayor of Ankara, the capital.

Mr. Erdogan also adopted a more negative tone on the campaign trail than in previous elections. He threatened lawsuits, accused the opposition of criminality or terrorism, and whipped up nationalist anger at rallies. Conjuring up a clash of civilizations, he even played edited segments of a video of the mass shooting at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

On the economy, Mr. Erdogan told supporters that the municipalities had nothing to do with the downturn, and that he as president would handle economic matters. In the weeks before the vote, the government set up municipal stalls to sell cheap vegetables to combat rising prices.

Most political analysts had predicted that however dissatisfied they were, supporters of his party, known as AKP, were unlikely to make the leap to vote for the opposition alliance. But some voters in the AKP-held district of Uskudar in Istanbul said they were switching.

We had enough, a middle-aged voter, Mustafa Topal, said after voting. We had enough of this robbery. The system of ransacking led to my change.

Younger people across the political spectrum have also voiced dissatisfaction, chafing at the lack of media freedom and the dearth of job prospects, said Ms. Aydintasbas, the European Council fellow.

I think this is a growing trend that you cannot suppress, she said. There is a second generation of young urban kids who are not behaving like the AKP. They have yearnings not unlike those of the kids on the other side of the tracks.

They feel it is odd, she added, to have Erdogans picture all over town like a Central Asian republic, and every time you turn on the TV he is on.

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Erdogan, Turkeys Leader, Staring at Major Electoral Defeat ...

ANKARA (Reuters) - After a decade and a half of dominance built on Turkeys buoyant growth Tayyip Erdogan has paid a heavy electoral price for an economic slump and will make changes to his government to halt the damage, senior officials in his party said on Monday.

Skyscrapers are seen in the business and financial district of Levent, which comprises of leading banks' and companies' headquarters, in Istanbul, Turkey, March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Erdogan saw his Islamist-rooted AK Party lose the capital Ankara in Sundays local elections and appeared set for defeat in Turkeys largest city Istanbul - stunning reversals in two bastions of the party since he took power in 2003.

The setbacks came despite a relentless two-month campaign by the president who addressed up to eight rallies a day, condemned his opponents as terrorists and warned that the vote was a matter of survival for Turkey.

The secularist Republican Peoples Party (CHP) overcame overwhelming media support for the AKP and an environment which European observers said fell short of requirements for genuine democratic elections. The AKP said it would appeal against the results in both cities.

Turkey has experienced years of rapid economic growth under Erdogan, underpinned by a construction boom and cheap loans, that have driven living standards ever higher and ensured the AKP won votes well beyond its core constituency of pious and conservative Turks.

But the recent economic troubles took a toll on party support, two AK Party sources said, after the lira slumped against the dollar last year, inflation jumped to 20 percent, unemployment climbed and the economy tipped into recession.

We saw the impact of the economy in the field, because there was serious unease, one of the sources said, adding that Istanbul accounted for 40 percent of Turkeys economy, meaning that any slowdown would hit the city hard.

In total, three party sources told Reuters Erdogan was likely to implement cabinet changes in response to the setback, but gave no details. There will certainly be changes in some places, one source said.

After Erdogan won elections last June which ushered in a powerful new executive presidency, he also appointed his son-in-law Berat Albayrak as Finance and Treasury Minister. The sources declined to say whether Albayraks position might be affected.

If (Erdogan) cannot create a solution, its inevitable that there will be greater losses in the period ahead, another party source said.

Erdogan appeared to recognize the scale of the challenge ahead, pledging on Sunday night to use the four years until Turkeys next national elections to carry out economic reform based on free market rules. We now have a four-and-a-half-year uninterrupted period to work, he said.

However, economists say the president has made similar reform pledges after all recent elections, before focusing instead on short-term fixes.

This time, his economic choices are narrowed by the conflicting priorities of supporting a fragile currency and restarting a stalled economy. Turkeys benchmark interest rate of 24 percent barely keeps the currency stable and at the same time puts a prohibitive cost on borrowing for Turkish firms.

Ulrich Leuchtmann of Commerzbank said authorities still have some room to increase government spending without driving the lira down further, but signals about Turkeys monetary policy were less encouraging.

Central Bank backdoor tightening over the last week to prevent a repeat of last years lira crisis, when the currency fell 30 percent, did not really increase confidence in their policy making, Leuchtmann said.

During his long tenure - first as prime minister, then as president - Erdogan has drawn strong support from ordinary Turks grateful for the stability and growth he brought, from liberals who backed his efforts to curb Turkeys military, and from Kurdish groups who entered into peace talks with Ankara.

But his main remaining ally now is the strongly nationalist MHP. Many former partners might think twice before resuming an alliance after Erdogans campaign condemnation of opponents he said were linked to terrorists.

In terms of political allies he has boxed himself into a Turkish ultra-nationalist corner, said Turkey analyst Gareth Jenkins.

A crackdown following a 2016 failed military coup has seen more than 77,000 people jailed pending trial, and widespread arrests are still routine. Authorities have suspended or sacked 150,000 civil servants and military personnel.

Erdogans critics accuse him of using the failed putsch as a pretext to quash dissent. Turkish authorities say the measures are necessary to combat threats to national security, threats which Erdogan repeatedly highlighted on the campaign trail.

After campaigning almost yearly for national elections, referendums and local votes, Erdogans horizons have reduced to relatively short-term goals, Jenkins said, casting doubt on his stated plan to avoid bringing forward elections slated for 2023.

Defeat in both Ankara and Istanbul, if confirmed, would also mark a watershed in Erdogans popular appeal - even though his AKP/MHP alliance still succeeded in securing over 51 percent of the vote nationally, leading him to declare an overall victory.

He can apply some brakes, he can slow the decline, Jenkins said. But I think we are seeing another milestone in that decline. I dont see him ever being able to increase his popularity again.

Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones

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Erdogan pays electoral price for Turkey's tumbling economy ...