Turkey's high election board reverses mayor decision in eastern Turkey -sources

Turkey's High Election Board decided that Abdullah Zeydan, DEM candidate in the eastern city of Van who won 55.5% of votes, will be handed the mayoral mandate of the city after Sunday's vote, two election board sources said on Wednesday.

Turkey's High Election Board decided that Abdullah Zeydan, DEM candidate in the eastern city of Van who won 55.5% of votes, will be handed the mayoral mandate of the city after Sunday's vote, two election board sources said on Wednesday. Pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament's third largest party, which performed well in the mainly Kurdish southeast, welcomed the decision in a post on social media platform X.

On Tuesday, the city's election board decided that the candidate of Erdogan's Ak Party, the second-place finisher who took 27.2% of the votes in the city, should be handed the mandate due to a legal issue with Zeydan's candidacy. Voters in Van and other southeastern provinces protested the earlier decision and clashed with the police before the reversal.