AKP to evaluate election results to decide on future moves: Erdoğan
ISTANBUL
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the preliminary results of the March 31 local elections showed that his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) became the winner of the municipal elections “by a majority just like when our party came to power on Nov. 3, 2002.”
“We, as the AKP, have come out of this election as the leading party by a majority. In terms of alliances also, we, together with the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP], have also come first. We, as the AKP, have lost some of the municipalities,” Erdoğan said late March 31 in Istanbul, before departing for the capital Ankara, where he said he would deliver a speech at the balcony of his party’s headquarters.
“We will accept that we have won the hearts of our people in the places where we won, and we were not successful enough in the places where we lost, and we will decide on our action plan accordingly,” he said.
“These [election] results have shown that our Kurdish brothers did not surrender their wills to neither the terror organization nor to those who have taken the support of the terror organization,” Erdoğan said, referring to the PKK.
The AKP is leading in the municipal elections, having won many provinces in Central Anatolia, but may lose control of the capital in the vote.
The AKP gained 46 percent of the votes in the elections, with almost 75 percent of the more than 194,678 ballot boxes counted. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has 30.05 percent.
The CHP is leading in the capital, Ankara, with more than 49 percent of the votes.
The AKP appeared to be still holding Istanbul, the country’s commercial hub, although the opposition’s candidate narrowed the gap.
