The mayor of Istanbul, the social democrat Ekrem Imamoglu, has been proclaimed winner of the municipal elections in the citywhere he leads the count with a 10-point advantage over the candidate of the Islamist AKP party (Erdogan’s formation), former minister Murat Kurum, with 85% of the votes counted.

“We are leading the count with close to a million votes,” Imamoglu said in an appearance broadcast live on the NTV network, stressing that the results are still provisional, although they leave little room for doubt. The count released by the state agency Anadolu shows a difference of 740,000 votes and an advantage of 10 points for Imamoglu, which has been widening as the count progressed.

Imamoglu assured that according to the minutes, His party, the social democratic CHP, is also a winner in the municipal assembly, until now with a majority of AKP councilors, and in the number of districts in the city. In Ankara, where the current mayor, Mansur Yavas, also of the CHP, leads with a 25-point lead, his AKP rival, Turgut Altinok, has already conceded defeat, declaring: “The people have made their decision, it is democracy , And I respect it”.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has focused all his rallies on the need to reconquer Istanbulwhich his party lost in 2019 after 25 years of Islamist municipal governments, and the resounding failure is a setback strong by showing widespread disenchantment with the AKP.

Besides, the CHP not only maintains Istanbul and Ankaraconquered in 2019, as well as its usual fiefdoms on the western and Mediterranean coast, but has also won in some AKP strongholds, such as Bursa, the country’s fourth city.

With 80% of the ballots counted across the country, the AKP only maintains municipal government in 23 of Turkey’s 81 provincial capitals, while the CHP obtains 36 and the pro-Kurdish leftist DEM, ten. It is a striking reversal compared to 2019, when the AKP had 38 capitals, the CHP, 22, and the DEM, then HDP, eight.