Turkey: AK Party to challenge voting results in Ankara

ANKARA

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party is preparing to legally challenge the poll results in over two dozen districts of the capital Ankara, the party’s secretary-general said on Monday.

“Because we see that we can make progress especially in the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality [mayoral race],” Fatih Sahin told reporters.

Saying that there were many invalid votes cast which would affect the results of Sunday’s local polls, Sahin said some of the results in the election reports were incompatible with “material reality.”

On Sunday millions of Turkish citizens cast ballots in the local elections to choose Turkey’s mayors, city council members, mukhtars (neighborhood officials), and members of elder councils for the next five years.

Sahin said they will follow the situation and present “very striking findings” with legal grounds to the councils in 25 districts of Ankara.

He also said that they believed the challenge would change the results in favor of the AK Party by narrowing the difference with the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate, who now seems to have more votes.

Mansur Yavas, mayoral candidate of the main opposition CHP in Ankara, is leading the race with 50.9 percent of votes, according to unofficial results, with Mehmet Ozhaseki, the AK Party candidate, trailing at 47.1 percent.

The ruling AK Party led in the weekend local elections, capturing 15 metropolitan municipalities (larger cities) and 24 cities, according to early results as of Monday morning. AK Party candidates got the support of 44.42 percent of voters on Sunday, beating the 30.07 percent draw of the main opposition CHP, which won mayoral races in 11 metropolitan municipalities and 10 cities.

* Writing by Sena Guler