Municipal elections begin in Türkiye

Published at: 31/03/2024 08:46 AM

This Sunday, starting early in the morning, the polling stations opened in Türkiye to elect the mayors of the country's 1,400 municipalities, as well as the members of the municipal assemblies.

In 32 eastern provinces of the country, the polls close at 16:00 (13:00 MT), while the rest of the nation will close an hour later.

Of the 61.4 million registered voters in Türkiye, electoral authorities expect a turnout of more than 80 percent, as in previous elections.

In the Eurasian country, 30 of the 81 provinces are classified as “macrourbe”, meaning that the mayor of the provincial capital governs the destinies of the entire province, giving the office great political relevance, TELESUR reports on its website.

One of the most contested and important is the Istanbul mayor's office, which represents the economic and cultural engine of the country, with 16 million inhabitants, where the Social Democrat Ekrem Imamoglu is seeking re-election and leads the polls with an advantage between 2 and 6 percent.

The current Turkish president , Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been encouraging his supporters at daily rallies for weeks to do their best to reconquer the symbolic square, since in general the president's AKP tends to win big in other areas of the country, but not in Istanbul.

Mazo News Team