ISTANBUL, April 1 -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development (AK) Party and the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have both said they narrowly won Istanbul's mayoral elections on Sunday. Speaking to reporters in Istanbul, CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, citing his party's data, said he had won by nearly 28,000 votes. Minutes later, the AK Party provicial head in Istanbul said his party's candidate, Binali Yildirim, had won by around 4,000 votes. In Ankara, preliminary results showed that Nation Alliance candidate Mansur Yavas had garnered 50.6 percent, with 92 percent of the votes counted. He was followed by Mehmet Ozhaseki, the People's Alliance nominee in the capital, with 47.2 percent. In the third-largest city, Izmir, the Nation Alliance candidate Mustafa Tunc Soyer was in the lead with 58.1 percent. Nihat Zeybekci, the candidate of Erdogan's bloc, had 38.5 percent. Nationwide, with 91.7 percent of the provincial votes counted, the People's Alliance, which is comprised of the AK Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP),had secured 51.7 percent of the votes. It was followed by Nation Alliance, a coalition made up by the centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and the right-wing Good Party, with 37.6 percent. Erdogan vows economic reforms The polls posed a major challenge for Erdogan given a backdrop of high inflation and rising unemployment sparked by a major currency crisis last year. Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul, Erdogan on Sunday acknowledged that his party had lost control in a number of cities, and pledged that he would focus on carrying out economic reforms. Erdogan, who was elected last year as the country's first executive president, said the next polls would be held in June 2023, adding that Turkey would carefully implement a "strong economic programme" without compromising on free-market rules. Murat Yetkin, a Turkish political analyst, told that if "the Erdogan-led AK Party-MHP alliance loses Istanbul [along with Ankara] as well, that means loss of control over five major cities in Turkey." "Even if Istanbul, with 11 million voters, is won with a few thousand votes, it will be perceived as a major loss," he said. "The results also show that the executive presidential system, which was designed to avoid coalitions, has led to a de facto coalition, since the AK Party cannot maintain majority without its symbiotic partnership with MHP." Ozgur Dilber, a CHP volunteer, said the results showed that the AK Party's popularity was waning - even if Erdogan's bloc won in Istanbul. "To me, the results are a proof that the number of voters who want change is increasing," he said outside the party's election monitoring office.
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