Ruling AK Party leads overall in Sunday's local polls

ANKARA

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party led the weekend local elections, capturing 15 metropolitan municipalities 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 main opposition Republican People's Party’s (CHP) 30.07 percent, which won mayoral races in 11 metropolitan municipalities and 10 municipalities.

Voter turnout was 84.52 percent, as 192,742 out of 194,678 ballot boxes have been counted across Turkey as of Monday morning, or some 99.01 percent of all ballots cast.

The People's Alliance of AK Party and the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) claimed 51.67 percent of the vote, while the Nation Alliance of the CHP and Iyi (Good) Party got 37.53 percent.

In Istanbul, CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu led in the polls, according to the head of Turkey's election authority and in the capital Ankara, CHP candidate Mansur Yavas was ahead with 50.9 percent, according to unofficial results.

In Izmir -- Turkey’s third-largest city, on the Aegean -- CHP candidate, Mustafa Tunc Soyer won with 58.02 percent, and in Diyarbakir, in Turkey’s southeast, the People's Democratic Party (HDP) candidate, Adnan Selcuk Mizrakli, was ahead with 62.96 percent.

In Konya, in central Anatolia, AK Party candidate Ugur Ibrahim Atalay had a sweeping win with 70.69 percent of the vote. In the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, CHP candidate Muhittin Bocuk led with 50.63 percent.

AK Party candidate Fatma Sahin was elected mayor of Gaziantep, a metropolis in the southeast.

In Bursa, in Turkey’s northwest, AK Party candidate Alinur Aktas was elected mayor with 49.6 percent.

In the northwestern province of Kirklareli, independent candidate Mehmet Siyam Kesimoglu was elected with 37.53 percent voter support.

In Tunceli, in Turkey’s east, Communist Party of Turkey candidate Fatih Mehmet Macoglu was elected mayor with 32.37 percent.

In Sirnak, in southeast, AK Party candidate Mehmet Yarka was elected mayor.

AK Party candidate Erdal Arikan was elected mayor of Bingol in eastern Turkey.

The AK Party's Sahin Serifogullari was elected mayor of Elazig, in eastern Turkey, and the party's Selahattin Gurkan was elected mayor of Malatya, also in eastern Turkey.

AK Party candidate Mehmet Sekmen led in the eastern city of Erzurum.