site.btaTurkiye Holds Local Elections

Voting in Turkiye’s local elections that will determine who gets to control the megalopolis of Istanbul and other key cities began on Sunday morning.

A total of 61,441,882 people have the right to vote for metropolitan and district municipal mayors and provincial and municipal councillors in the 85-million-person country. There are 1,032,610 first-time voters and more than 206,000 polling stations opened across Turkiye. 

The elections are contested by candidates from 34 political parties. Istanbul has the largest number of mayoral candidates and is expected to become the stage of Turkiye's most fierce electoral battle. Political analysts argue that the vote in Istanbul will be decisive for the future of the entire country.

Out of the 49 candidates running for the mayoral post in the megalopolis, 22 are nominated by a party, the rest are independents.

The main contestants in the race are the ruling Justice and Development Party candidate, Murat Kurum, and the incumbent mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, of the Republican People's Party, who took office in 2019.

"Today is a test for the work we have done over the past five years and the future of Turkiye's megalopolis," Imamoglu said after he cast his vote in Istanbul’s Beylikduzu district earlier in the day.

More than 11 million people can cast their ballots at the 33,000 polling stations in Istanbul.

The mayoral candidates in the capital of Ankara are 24. The primary opponents there are incumbent mayor Mansur Yavas of the Republican People's Party and Justice and Development Party candidate Turgut Altınok.