Turkish Ruling Party Files New Appeal Against Istanbul Mayoral Election Results - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st April, 2019) Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) filed on Saturday a new appeal with the Supreme Election Council in order to cancel the results of the Istanbul mayoral election and call a new vote, local media reported, citing AKP Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz.

On Wednesday, Ekrem Imamoglu from the Turkish opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was inaugurated as the mayor of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, after winning the March 31 election. Meanwhile, a day before his inauguration, AKP appealed the results of the vote.

The new AKP's appeal includes a list of 14,712 non-eligible voters who voted in Istanbul during the local elections in spite of having been dismissed from public posts with a presidential decree and, therefore, having no right to vote, the Anadolu news agency specified.

The AKP filed the petition with the list to the Supreme Election Council as an attachment to its previous appeal, submitted on Tuesday, the media outlet added.

Apart from filing the appeal, referring to alleged violations of voting procedures, on Tuesday, the AKP also initiated a recount of votes in Istanbul in early April. However, the recount has not resulted in a significant change of the election result, while the gap between the two candidates � Imamoglu and AKP's Binali Yildirim � has been slightly reduced.

While Imamoglu, who used to work as the head of Istanbul's Beylikduzu district's council, gained 48.8 percent of the vote in the Istanbul mayoral election, Yildirim got 48.55 percent.

As a result of the municipal elections, the CHP has won the vote in the country's capital of Ankara for the first time since 1994. CHP candidates have also won in the cities of Izmir, Antalya, Adana and Mersin.

Meanwhile, the AKP has won 44.33 percent of mayorships nationwide, while the CHP has won 30.12 percent.