Recep Erdogan in Turkey: strong setback: Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara lost in municipal elections

The Republican People's Party (CHP), The main opposition force in Turkey won the cities of Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara on Sunday, beating for the first time the AK party of President Tayyip Erdogan in the capital for the first time since taking office , 16 years ago. The pro-government electoral alliance won the most votes in the country as a whole.

With nearly 100% of the vote counted, the candidate for mayor of the opposition CHP laymanMansur Yavas had reached 50.9%, with a 3.8% advantage over his opponent of the AK Islamist trend.

On the other hand, the CHP candidate in Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was imposed by a minimum difference of 0.28% before the elected Erdogan, Binali Yıldırım.

Also in Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, won the CHP with 58.6% of the vote. Here, the candidate Tunc Soyer obtained a difference of almost 20% compared to the candidate of the ruling party.

The defeat in Ankara is a big setback for Erdogan, who led an intense campaign two months before the elections, which he termed "president". "question of survival" for Turkey.

This is the first time in 16 years that Erdogan has lost control of the capital, which means a return of the CHP after 25 years of local opposition, as he remembered the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet

"We must accept the fact that we have won and lost cities, this is necessary in democracies"Erdogan told Istanbul, promising that Turkey would now focus on its troubled economy ahead of the 2023 national elections.

"Twe have a long time to come during which we will carry out economic reforms without compromising the rules of the market economy ", he told reporters.

Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics for more than 16 years, thanks in part to strong economic growth and the support of an electorate of fervent and conservative Muslim Turks.

The leader has become the most popular politician, but also the most controversial of the country in modern history, after strengthening its control of power in the elections of last year, a new executive presidency was created, approved by referendum in 2017.

In fact, its popular alliance garnered 51.63% of the votes at the national leveldespite losing in major cities, against 37.55% of its main opponent, the National Alliance. More specifically, the Erdogan AK alone won 44.32% of the votes against 30.1% of the deputies.

A currency crisis after the elections of last yearor caused a 30% loss in the value of the Turkish lira and pushed the economy into recession.

With inflation approaching 20% ​​and rising unemploymentsome voters were willing to punish the president.

"I was not really going to vote today, but when I saw how much I was weakening (l? AK), I thought it might be time to give them a shot. Everyone is unhappy. Everyone is fighting, said Hakan, 47, after voting in Ankara.

While authorities rushed to tidy up the reading last week, Erdogan raised the country's economic problems as a result of Western attacks, saying that Turkey would solve its problems after Sunday's vote and adding that she was "the boss" of the economy.

With information from Reuters and AFP