Fast News AK Party will appeal to the country's Supreme Election Council for a full recount of votes in all 38 districts of Istanbul. Officials count ballots after polls closed during local elections in Istanbul, Turkey on March 31, 2019. (Reuters) Turkey's governing Justice and Development (AK) Party will appeal to the country's top election authority for a recount of votes cast in all districts of Istanbul, a party official said on Sunday. Speaking to reporters in Istanbul, AK Party Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz said, "There is organised irregularity, organised abuse here. They are beyond errors." According to unofficial results, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu leads Istanbul with the AK Party's candidate Binali Yildirim follows closely behind. However, the AK Party has said a recount might change the results. Millions of Turkish voters cast their votes nationwide last Sunday in the local elections to choose Turkey's mayors, city council members, neighbourhood officials and members of the elder councils for the next five years. According to unofficial results, the AK Party is leading in 15 metropolitan municipalities and 24 smaller cities. Source: AA<doc-sep>ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP) will demand a new vote in Istanbul, a senior party official said on Tuesday after its bid was rejected for a citywide recount of March 31 election results that appeared to hand the party defeat. FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by Vice President Fuat Oktay and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, talks during a news confrence at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey April 8, 2019. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS Initial results show the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) narrowly won control of Turkey’s biggest city in the mayoral elections, seemingly bringing an end to the 25-year rule there by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors. Since the vote, the AKP has filed a series of requests for recounts in the city. Overnight, the High Election Board (YSK) rejected a request to recount all votes across 31 of Istanbul’s districts, the party’s representative at the YSK said. The YSK agreed only to a recount of 51 ballot boxes, spread across 21 of the city’s total 39 districts, but the AKP called this decision “unfathomable”. Speaking to reporters in Istanbul, AKP Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz said his party would file an extraordinary appeal to the YSK for a fresh vote in Istanbul over what he said were irregularities that directly impacted the outcome. “We will file our extraordinary appeal today. We will say that there have been events that directly impacted the outcome of the elections and that we demand the renewal of the elections in Istanbul,” Yavuz said. He later tweeted that the appeal could happen “in coming days”. He said if the YSK rejected the party’s appeal to renew the votes, doubt over the elections would remain until the next mayoral elections are due in five years. Erdogan said on Monday the local elections were marred by “organized crime” at ballot boxes in Istanbul, raising the possibility of re-running the vote in the city of some 15 million residents. Erdogan’s comments, his strongest challenge yet to the election process in Istanbul, briefly drove the lira down and also weighed on Turkish stocks. The lira was steady at 5.6850 to the dollar on Tuesday. In Istanbul, CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu called on the YSK to finalize the election results as soon as possible and said the AKP was to blame for the uncertainty surrounding the vote. “If they’re looking for the perpetrators, they should look in the mirror. Look in the mirror if you want to see who is responsible for this,” he said. ‘SORE LOSERS’ The loss in Istanbul, if confirmed, would be a setback for Erdogan’s efforts to pull Turkey out of recession. He has dominated Turkish politics for more than 16 years on the back of stellar economic growth. Slideshow ( 8 images ) To justify its calls for recounts and for a full re-run of the elections, the AKP said there were illegal appointments of representatives at ballot boxes and irregularities across the city. The CHP said the AKP’s appeals were unlawful. “You are complaining and appealing nonstop, and this shows one of two things. Either you are so incompetent that you can’t even get an election right, or you are such sore losers that you can’t accept defeat,” CHP spokesman Faik Oztrak said. The YSK’s decision on the AKP’s appeal for a fresh vote in Istanbul will be final. If rejected, the ongoing recounts across the city will be completed and the results finalised. If the appeal is accepted, the re-run of elections in Istanbul would be held on the first Sunday 60 days after the initial elections, which would be June 2. Erdogan’s party also lost the mayoralty in the capital Ankara to CHP candidate Mansur Yavas despite seeking recounts across the city. Yavas received his mandate on Monday after the YSK upheld the initial results. Erdogan said the scale of irregularities his party had uncovered meant the margin of votes between Istanbul’s top two candidates, currently at less than 15,000 in a city of 10 million voters, was too narrow for the opposition to claim victory. However, his AKP candidate and former prime minister Binali Yildirim had declared victory by some 3,000 votes in Istanbul on election night, before conceding that Imamoglu held a lead.<doc-sep>What is the future of Europe? Get local insights from Lisbon to Moscow with an unrivalled network of journalists across Europe, expert analysis, our dedicated ‘Brussels Briefing’ newsletter. Customise your myFT page to track the countries of your choice.<doc-sep>
Turkey’s ruling party said Sunday it will appeal for a full recount of all votes cast in Istanbul’s mayoral election, which the opposition narrowly won in a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The opposition’s mayoral candidate urged the ruling party to accept defeat. In the March 31 local elections, the opposition not only prevailed in a tight race in Istanbul, a city of 15 million residents that is Turkey’s financial and cultural center, but took control of Ankara, the capital. Erdogan’s party, which had held both cities for decades, contested the results, claiming the elections were “tainted.” The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won the right for a recount of votes that were previously deemed invalid. But on Sunday, Ali Ihsan Yavuz, a deputy chairman, said the party would appeal to the country’s top election authority for a total recount of votes in 38 districts in Istanbul, not just of ballots that were canceled. The party made the move after the opposition candidate’s lead narrowed to 16,380 votes after some 80% of the invalidated ballots were reassessed in the partial recount. The opposition Republican People’s Party maintains that it looks increasingly unlikely that the invalidated ballots will swing the result in Istanbul in favor of the ruling party. Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition party candidate, urged the AKP to concede. “I understand that it is not easy to lose [Istanbul] after ruling it for 25 years, but this is what democracy is about,” Imamoglu said. “It’s not the end of the world.” Imamoglu also asked the Supreme Electoral Board to assume its “historic duty” and avoid decisions that would lead to suspicions of “double standards” in favor of Erdogan’s party. Yavuz insisted Sunday that the elections were marred by “organized irregularities.” The electoral authority is expected to rule on the request for a full recount before confirming the final results of the elections at the end of the week.