MHP takes over three new provinces in local elections

ISTANBUL

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has taken the lead in Turkey’s three eastern and southern provinces, which had belonged to other parties since the 2009 local elections.

MHP was leading the votes in Turkey’s Mersin, Kars and Iğdır provinces late on March 30, all of them ruled by other political parties since the last local elections in 2009.

With more than half of the ballot boxes opened in Mersin, MHP’s candidate Burhanettin Kocamaz leads the race by getting 33.44 percent of the votes, Republican People’s Party (CHP)’s candidate Macit Özcan second with 30.66 percent in a race that went to the wire. Özcan, as a candidate for CHP, had won the race in the 2009 local elections by receiving 31 percent of the votes.

MHP was also close to retaining Adana, one of Turkey’s biggest cities, and a neighboring city of Mersin.
MHP is also taking the lead in the elections race in two of the northeastern provinces, Kars and Iğdır, which currently have mayors from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Democratic Society Party (DTP), consecutively. 

Murtaza Karaçanta, MHP’s candidate for Kars, heads the race with 28.32 percent, while his closest rival and current mayor Nevzat Bozkuş from AKP, follows him with 25,62 percent. So far some 81 percent of the ballot boxes have been opened. Bozkuş had won the race as a candidate for AKP by getting 32.7 percent of the votes in the 2009 elections.

MHP’s candidate in Iğdır, Gündüz Güneş, is leading the race with 45.14 percent, while around 77 percent of the votes have been counted.