Lira Falls as Erdogan Demands Probe of Istanbul Vote ‘Stealing’

(Bloomberg) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the country’s election board to investigate “widespread irregularities” in local elections in Istanbul, where a partial recount is already underway after the ruling party contested its defeat. The lira declined on the remarks.

“There is stealing from the boxes,” Erdogan said. “We’re applying to the YSK against that organized intervention at the ballot box,” he said, referring to the High Election Board. In the U.S. “they renew elections when there is a one percentage point difference,” the president said in what could signal a push for a new election in the city.

The March 31 municipal vote ended a quarter century of rule by Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted movement in Ankara, the capital. But it’s the apparent defeat in Istanbul that has galvanized his ruling AK Party into refuting the preliminary results.

“No one has the right to claim victory in Istanbul with just a 13,000 to 14,000 vote difference,” Erdogan said, referring to the gap between the candidate of the opposition CHP, who was initially declared winner, and the AKP’s pick for mayor. The lira weakened 0.85 percent to 5.674 at 10:50 a.m. local time.

Erdogan’s party has already sought the cancellation of voting in Istanbul’s Buyukcekmece district and applied to the election board for a recount of all votes in the remaining 38 districts across the country’s largest city of 16 million people.

The AK Party and its predecessors have been holding Istanbul since Erdogan won the mayor’s office in 1994, and a defeat there would hinder social policies that rally the support of poorer citizens.

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