Turkey's opposition leads based on initial results in Istanbul re-run

Turkey's main opposition was leading with 53.6% of votes versus 45.4% for President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party in Istanbul's high-stakes re-run mayoral election, with nearly 95% of the city's ballots opened, CNN Turk said on Sunday.

The election was seen as a test of Turkey's ailing democracy, and a loss would be a blow to Erdogan who campaigned hard and whose ruling party and its predecessors have run the city for 25 years.