- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
TEHRAN, Apr 03 - Turkish electoral authorities on Wednesday began recounting votes from Istanbul districts after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP challenged tallies showing an opposition candidate narrowly won a weekend local election.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The AKP won most votes nationwide in Sunday's municipal ballot, but results also showed the party lost the capital Ankara and the country's economic hub Istanbul in one of its worst setbacks in a decade and a half in power.
AKP officials on Tuesday filed a challenge with electoral authorities saying they had found irregularities in ballots in Ankara and Istanbul.
"The district branches of the electoral board in Istanbul decided to recount the ballots in eight districts after the appeals yesterday," Supreme Election Board chief Sadi Guven told reporters.
He said some of the district branches had already started rechecking ballots, most of which were votes that had been rejected as invalid.
AKP officials had said there was a huge discrepancy between ballots cast at polling stations and data sent to election authorities.
Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, was a key election prize for Erdogan and he presented former premier and loyalist Binali Yildirim to run as the party candidate for mayor.
Erdogan, himself a former Istanbul mayor, had campaigned hard in the city. But the ruling party was stung by the economy with Turkey in recession for the first time in a decade and inflation in double digits.
Source: AFP
Your Comment