Turkey?s ruling party wins local polls

ANKARA. March 31. KAZINFORM. Turkey?s Islamist-rooted ruling party won an easy victory in local polls but saw its popularity shrink for the first time in what analysts said yesterday was a warning to the government to focus on the economy and compromise with secularist opponents.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has won all four elections in the past seven years, took 38.9 percent of the vote, almost eight points less than its previous electoral showing in 2007, according to unofficial results, with 99.6 percent of the vote counted. ?The ballot box issues a warning to the AKP,? the Vatan daily headlined, while Aksam said the party?s support was ?eroded? at the ballot box. The secularist main opposition Republican People?s Party came second with 23.2 percent of the vote, followed by the Nationalist Action Party with 16.1 percent. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the result was ?a fresh vote of confidence? in the AKP, but conceded he was not satisfied with the figures. ?We will study the results closely and ... see why we have ended in this position,? he said, signaling a possible cabinet reshuffle. The AKP won more than 41 percent in the last municipal polls in 2004, followed by a sweeping 46.6-percent victory in general elections in 2007; Kazinform cites Arab News. Erdogan convened a Cabinet meeting yesterday and was to discuss the election results with AKP leaders later in the day. Sunday?s polls saw the party lose local administrations in several major cities, while retaining the capital Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey?s largest metropolis, but only after tough battles with the opposition. It also suffered a crushing defeat in Diyarbakir, the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, at the hands of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party. ?The elections have been a success for the AKP ... but its perpetual upward trend has been broken,? political scientist Sencer Ayata said. ?This brings a fundamental change in the political climate in the country.?