Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
President of Turkey and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during AK Party’s extended meeting of provincial heads in Ankara, Turkey on September 14, 2018.
Turks began voting on Sunday in local elections that President Tayyip Erdogan has described as a matter of survival for the country.
Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than 16 years thanks in part to strong economic growth, has become Turkey’s most popular, yet also most divisive, leader in modern history.
However, he could be dealt an electoral blow with polls indicating his ruling AK Party (AKP) may lose control of the capital Ankara, and even Istanbul, the country’s largest city.
With the economy contracting following a currency crisis last year in which the lira lost more than 30 percent of its value, some voters appeared ready to punish Erdogan, who has ruled with an increasingly uncompromising stance.
“I was actually not going to vote today, but when I saw how much they (AKP) were flailing, I thought this might be time to land them a blow. Everyone is unhappy. Everyone is struggling,” said 47-year-old Hakan after voting in Ankara.
Voting started at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) in eastern Turkey and an hour later in the rest of the country. Polling stations close at 4 p.m. in the east and 5 p.m. in the west.
Just over 57 million people are eligible to vote. A clear picture of the winners will probably emerge around midnight.
This week, as authorities again scrambled to shore up the lira, Erdogan cast the country’s economic woes as resulting from attacks by the West, saying Turkey would overcome its troubles following Sunday’s vote and adding he was “the boss” of the economy.
“The aim behind the increasing attacks towards our country ahead of the elections is to block the road of the big, strong Turkey,” Erdogan told one of his six rallies in Istanbul on Saturday.
Sunday’s elections, in which Turks will vote for mayors and other local officials across the country, are the first since Erdogan assumed sweeping presidential powers last year and will be a reckoning for his government, which has come under fire for its economic policies and record on human rights.
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