Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party has decided to lodge objections to local election results in all 39 Istanbul districts, the ‘Hurriyet’ newspaper said yesterday, after results showed a narrow lead for the main opposition candidate.

The AK Party is on track to lose control of Turkey’s two biggest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, in a surprise election setback that may complicate Mr Erdogan’s plans to combat recession.

In Istanbul, the mayoral candidate of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, Ekrem Imamoglu, and his AKP rival, ex-prime minister Binali Yildirim, both said on Monday that Mr Imamoglu was around 25,000 votes ahead.

The AK Party has said it will use its right to object to the results where there are voting irregularities. Uncertainty generated by the elections has added to pressure on the lira, which weakened sharply last week as a lack of confidence in the currency among Turks led them to snap up record holdings of dollars and gold.

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