Hard defeat for Erdogan in Turkey: His party lost ground in local elections and failed to recover Istanbul

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, suffered a heavy defeat in his country's municipal elections. The party he leads, AK, came second nationally and was defeated in the most important cities at the hands of the CHP, the main opposition party. Indeed, it was his most significant electoral setback since 2002.

With more than 80% of the votes counted, the CHP had achieved 37% of the votes, a little more than the 36% obtained by the ruling party, which fell in Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul. To measure the atypical nature of the results, the CHP received the best results in 35 years.

This last case turned out to be the most painful for Erdogan since his party had placed particular emphasis on recovering the capital of Turkey. However, once the votes were counted, CHP won with 51%, while AK fell behind with 12 percentage points.

The Turkish president, who has been in power as president or prime minister since 2003, had sent about 17 government ministers to campaign in Istanbul. In addition, AK lost in historically friendly territories, such as Adıyaman, Afyonkarahisar and Zonguldak.

"Voters have decided to change the face of Turkey," celebrated CHP president Ozgur Ozel on Sunday night.

Erdogan also seemed to get the message. Once the results were known, the president pointed out the need to make a "change" for his party. "March 31 is not an end for us, but a turning point. (...) If we made a mistake, we will fix it. If we are missing something, we will complete it," he added.