Turkey’s AK party to challenge Istanbul voting results

President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party has decided to lodge objections to local election results in all 39 Istanbul districts, Hurriyet newspaper said on Tuesday, after results showed a narrow lead for the main opposition candidate.

Erdogan’s party had lost control of the country’s two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, the capital.

The loss of Istanbul, the country’s business capital and Erdogan’s political base, is a particularly sharp setback for a president who has tightened his control of the government and news media, stifled dissent, and, critics contend, manipulated election results.

AK Party has said it will use its right to object to the results where there are voting irregularities. The deadline for appeals expires at 1200 GMT.

Results reported on Tuesday by the semiofficial Anadolu news agency showed the opposition candidate for mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, at 48.79 percent, against 48.51 percent for Binali Yildirim, the candidate of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, with 100 percent of ballots counted.

The results also confirmed the victory of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., in Ankara, the capital. The opposition candidate Mansur Yavas won 50.91 percent of the vote, over the AKP candidate Mehmet Ozhaseki’s 47.1 percent, with 100 percent of ballots counted.

Anadolu cautioned that counts were unofficial and that official results would be released by the High Election Council.

The head of that council, Sadi Guven, said in Ankara on Tuesday that it had shared preliminary results with political parties. For now, he said, the council will give certificates of election to candidates whose victories are not subject to appeals, which can be submitted until 3 p.m. Tuesday.

The council will rule on those challenges within eight days, he added.

Uncertainty generated by the local elections has added to pressure on the lira, which weakened sharply last week as a lack of confidence in the currency among Turks led them to snap up record holdings of dollars and gold.

On Tuesday the lira weakened as much as 2 percent against the dollar on concerns about renewed tensions with the United States after it halted delivery to Turkey of equipment related to the F-35 fighter aircraft.