Electoral authorities on Wednesday recounted votes in more than a dozen Istanbul districts after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP challenged results giving the opposition a narrow victory in Sunday’s election.
The AKP won most votes nationwide in the municipal ballot, but tallies also showed the party lost the capital, Ankara, and the nation’s economic hub, Istanbul, in one of its worst setbacks in a decade and a half in power.
AKP officials on Tuesday filed a challenge with electoral authorities saying they had found irregularities in ballots in both Ankara and Istanbul.
“The district branches of the electoral board in Istanbul decided to recount the ballots in eight districts after the appeals yesterday,” Turkish Supreme Electoral Council President Sadi Guven told reporters.
Anadolu news agency later said that officials were recounting votes in 18 Istanbul districts, including in three where every vote was being verified.
In the other districts, officials were checking only nullified ballots.
In Ankara, officials ordered the recounting of all votes for mayor in 11 city districts. It was not immediately clear when those recounts would start.
AKP officials had said there was a huge discrepancy in both cities between ballots cast at polling stations and data sent to election authorities.
Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, was a key election prize for Erdogan, and he presented former prime minister and loyalist Binali Yildirim to run as the party’s candidate for mayor.
Erdogan, who launched his political career as Istanbul mayor, had campaigned hard in the city, but the ruling party was stung by the economy, with Turkey in recession for the first time in a decade and inflation in double digits.
In a video shared on Wednesday on social media, Erdogan sought to reassure supporters over the election.
“Everything is still ongoing,” he said, referring to the appeal.
He also criticized the opposition as “lame ducks,” and said the AKP still controlled the majority of district councils in Istanbul and Ankara, even if the opposition victories for the mayor posts were confirmed.
Istanbul was a tight race and both Yildirim and the opposition CHP candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, declared victory when tallies showed them in a dead heat.
Electoral authorities on Monday said Imamoglu was ahead by 28,000 votes with nearly all ballot boxes tallied, prompting AKP officials to challenge the result.
“The world is watching us, watching the results of our city’s election,” Imamoglu told reporters on Wednesday, asking to be handed his mandate as soon as possible. “Don’t let Turkey’s credibility be destroyed by three or four people acting like they are kids who had their toys taken away from them.”
However, the AKP was fighting back.
AKP Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz claimed the difference had slipped to fewer than 20,000 votes between Imamoglu and Yildirim.
Imamoglu had 48.79 percent of the votes, while Yildirim had 48.52 percent, Anadolu reported on Tuesday, citing preliminary results.
It reported close to 300,000 votes had been annulled in Istanbul on election day.
A loss in Istanbul would be especially sensitive for Erdogan, who grew up in the city’s working-class Kasimpasa neighborhood and liked to tell AKP members that victory in the city was like winning all of Turkey.
Asked about the AKP’s challenge on Tuesday, a US official urged parties to accept the election results.
“Free and fair elections are essential to any democracy and this means acceptance of legitimate election results are essential, and we expect nothing less from Turkey,” US Department of State spokesman Robert Palladino said.
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