THE RUNDOWN | After winning the federal elections, the symbolic referendum to see what Erdogan's grip on power is was put on trial with the municipal elections. With a dwindling economy, voters may start shifting away from Erdogan's once-popular AK Party, evidently clear in how some of the major cities voted. Turkey-based journalist Laura Wells analyzes.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party faced a major upset on Monday as opposition parties triumphed in the country's municipal elections, seizing control of key power centers Ankara and Istanbul.
Sunday's vote came amid an economic downturn in Turkey and has been widely seen as a referendum on Erdogan's leadership, whose party has now been in power for a decade and a half.
Losing the country's two major cities would be a stunning defeat for Erdogan, a former Istanbul mayor himself, whose ability to win repeatedly at the ballot box has been unparalleled in Turkish history.
In a major upset to the ruling party, Erdogan's AKP party lost control of the capital city Ankara, as results on Monday showed the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Mansur Yavas emerging victorious.
In Istanbul, the opposition candidate for mayor- Ekrem Imamoglu- was also leading Monday by nearly 28,000 votes with most of the already counted, Supreme Election Board (YSK) chairman Sadi Guven said.
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.
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