ANKARA
Turkey's Supreme Election Board has unanimously rejected all appeals by the country's main opposition party, Republican People’s Party (CHP), for a recount of the March 30 local election results in the country's capital,
The opposition party had filed a petition of objection to the board Sunday seeking to void the mayoral election results for Ankara.
The capital's provincial election body had already rejected the party's first appeal.
The election race in Ankara became increasingly tense after 60 percent of the votes were counted. As Gokcek, who had been leading with a substantial margin in the early hours of vote counting, found CHP candidate, Mansur Yavas, closing the gap as the ballots began to arrive from the upper-class district of Cankaya.
The official results of the local elections have yet to be announced, but in Ankara all the votes have been counted and Gokcek is poised to retain control of the Turkish capital after obtaining around 44.7 percent of the votes, closely followed by Yavas, at around 43.8 percent. This means that the AK Party's Ankara mayoral candidate, Melih Gokcek, has won his fifth election victory in the March 30 local ballot giving him another five years in office.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
