AKP keeps Istanbul, CHP shines with its candidate in Turkish elections

With 98 percent of the votes counted, AKP’s Topbas secured 44.33 percent of the votes, while Kemal Kilicdaroglu from CHP garnered 36.88 percent. In the 2004 local elections, AKP gained 45.32 percent and CHP received 28.92 percent of the votes.   Â

 

In the provincial council votes, which are seen as proxy of general elections, AKP’s support fell 7.55 percent to 39.03 percent; while CHP’s support rose 2.4 percent to 23.29 compared to the results of the parliamentary elections in 2007.

 

The vote counting process in Istanbul was disrupted for a couple of hours after the computer system of the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, that uploads data from ballot boxes to the database crashed.

 

Late on Sunday evening the CHP announced that it narrowly lead the race and urged its supporters not to leave the ballot boxes until all votes were counted. "We told every CHP official manning the ballot boxes to stay where they are until all votes are counted to prevent any possible manipulation (of the votes)," Gursel Tekin, the chairman of CHP's Istanbul branch, told reporters.

 

The jump in CHP’s votes mainly comes from the popularity of its candidate. Kilicdaroglu, a CHP deputy, came into the spotlight after raising corruption claims against high-level AKP officials. According to opinion polls prior to the elections, support for Kilicdaroglu stemmed from electors viewing him as an honest politician.

 

Another interesting result for Istanbul is support for pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP. Its candidate Akin Birdal garnered over 300,000 of votes, representing around 4.6 percent of the total. This result shows that had the DTP refrained from nominating a candidate, Kilicdaroglu’s support may have been higher.

 Â

The Democratic Left Party, or DSP, for example, did not nominate a mayoralty candidate in Ankara, offering its support to CHP candidate Murat Karayalcin. However, the party nominated Ahmet Vefik Alp in Istanbul, who garnered around 175,000 votes, representing 2.56 percent.