Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling AKP party appears set to suffer a nationwide setback against the main opposition CHP, preliminary unofficial results showed on Sunday.
Erdoğan's AKP is headed for defeat in all top five urban centres, including the largest metropolis Istanbul and the capital Ankara, unofficial results from state news agency Anadolu showed.
Initial countrywide results gauge the race for mayoral seat for each 81 cities.
This is the first time Erdogan's AKP is fall behind in a countrywide poll in the more than two decades of his rule.
Sunday marks the "first time since 1977" that the secular CHP is coming in first place in nationwide polls, CHP Chairman Ozgur Ozel told reporters at his party's headquarters in Ankara.
"The voters have decided to change the 22-year-old Turkey picture," Ozel said, citing what he called deterioration in rule of law as well as Erdogan's handling of the economy among reasons for CHP`s success.
The results come as a counterbalance to the AKP's "disproportionate force," he added.
In Istanbul, incumbent mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu from the secular CHP secured more than 50% of votes, after more than 70% of the votes were counted.
His rival Murat Kurum from Erdoğan's Islamic conservative AKP received 40.9% of the vote, according to Anadolu.
Sunday's results come amid a cost-of-living crisis and despite what observers called an unfair election campaign with 70-year-old Erdoğan enjoying far larger state resources and controlling around 90% of the mainstream media.
Initial official results are expected later Sunday evening.
Around 61 million people in 81 provinces were called on to elect mayors, municipal councilors and other local politicians in Sunday's polls.
Ten months after Erdogan's re-election for a third term, the vote was seen as a popularity test for the president and his AKP.
Imamoglu, who won the mayoral seat in Istanbul in 2019, ending 25 years of governing by the AKP and its predecessors, is considered a potential future presidential challenger to Erdogan.
Istanbul, a metropolis of 16 million, holds a special status for Erdoğan, whose political rise started there.
When his Istanbul candidate lost by a small margin in 2019 local elections, Erdoğan's government quickly moved to cancel the vote.
In repeat polls, Imamoğlu won by an even larger margin, handing Erdoğan his worst political loss.
Observers had warned of the risk of a further slide into "authoritarianism" if Istanbul, with its around $16 billion annual budget, is returned to AKP control.
"In an increasingly authoritarian Turkey that concentrates resources in the government, opposition parties need access to municipal resources in order to survive," said political analyst Berk Esen.
Imamoğlu also faces a potential political ban in a court case which critics say is politically motivated.
"Imamoğlu is the opposition’s best candidate," analyst Esen told dpa. "After another win, it would be very difficult to write Imamoğlu off... Erdoğan knows that too.”
