Türkiye responds to calls for snap presidential election

Türkiye does not intend to hold the snap presidential election.

There are no plans to hold the snap presidential election in Türkiye. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's term will last until 2028, Gazeta.Ru reports citing President Erdogan’s adviser.

Incumbent mayors of Ankara and Istanbul Mansur Yavas and Ekrem Imamoglu who are also members of the opposition parties retain their posts following the recent local elections in Türkiye.

Türkiye's main opposition party has claimed big election victories in the main cities of Istanbul and Ankara.

The results are a significant blow for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had hoped to regain control of the cities less than a year after he claimed a third term as president.

He led the campaign to win in Istanbul, where he grew up and became mayor.

But Ekrem Imamoglu, who first won the city in 2019, scored a second victory for the secular opposition CHP.

Mr Erdogan had vowed a new era in Türkiye’s megacity of almost 16 million people, but the incumbent mayor of Istanbul was on course to win more than 50 per cent of the vote, defeating the president's AK Party candidate by more than 11 points and almost one million votes.

This was also the first time since Mr Erdogan came to power 21 years ago that his party was defeated across the country at the ballot box.

In the capital Ankara, opposition mayor Mansur Yavas was so far ahead of his rival on 60 per cent that he declared victory when less than half the votes were in. Supporters blocked all the main roads in the city, waving flags and sounding their car horns.

President Erdogan, 70, acknowledged the election had not gone as he had hoped, but he told supporters in Ankara it would mark "not an end for us but rather a turning point".