The president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoganhe admitted this Sunday in a speech at midnight this Sunday the setback of his party in the municipal elections and has assured that “democracy wins “.

“We have not achieved the results we expected,” said the president in a speech in Ankara, broadcast live on the NTV network. With 90% of the ballots counted, Erdogan’s party, the Islamist AKP, loses the majority of the vote for the first time in two decades before the advance of the social democratic CHP, which leads him by 1.5 points, more than half a million votes.

The AKP governed 38 provincial capitals since the municipal capitals in 2019, but if the results are confirmed, he will only be 23 from now on, while the CHP has risen from 22 to 36including some strongholds of the AKP, such as Bursa, the fourth city in the country. It has also expanded its lead in Istanbul and Ankaracities that it captured from the AKP in 2019 after a quarter of a century of Islamist municipal governments.

The pro-Kurdish leftist DEM party, formerly HDP, has also advancedwhich rises from 8 to 10 provincial capitalswhile the ultranationalist MHP, an ally of Erdogan, drops from 11 to eight.

In two AKP strongholds, the important city of Sanliurfa in the southeast and Yozgat in central Anatolia, the fundamentalist Islamist party Yeniden Refah (YRP) has prevailed until now ally of Erdogan, but who in these elections has decided to appear separately and has become the third force in votes, with 6%.

The moderate nationalist IYI, until now an ally of the CHP, yeThe ultranationalist BBP each won one province in central Anatolia.

“The nation has spoken and has decided”

“The winner in these elections is democracy,” said Erdogan, adding that “the nation has spoken and decided“. He stressed that the elections had been carried out without major incidents and that the results express the will of the people.

“This is not an end, but a turning point”Erdogan noted, recalling that there are four years left until the next general elections. “We will continue forward, we will continue winning: I believe in you,” the president insisted.