Turkish Municipal Elections - Resounding Victory For Erdogan

Here are the early results from today's municipal elections : with 12.4% of ballots counted, the ruling AKP party appears to be a blowout victory, with 48.1% of the vote, while CHP has 24% and MHP is at 13.8%, based on CNNTurk reporting. Bloomberg confirms the official "results":

TURKEY’S AKP LEADS WITH 50% OF VOTE AFTER 12% OF BALLOTS OPENED
TURKEY RULING AK PARTY LEADS IN ANKARA, ISTANBUL: NTV

More from Euronews [7]:

The election is being viewed as a crisis referendum, say analysts on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 10-year-rule. He was not standing but criss-crossed the country in the build up to Sunday’s vote campaigning for his Justice and Development Party – the AKP. Tensions had risen in advance of the ballot and the PM was in a defiant mood when he cast his vote.

“So far in political rallies there have been undesirable statements and speeches, our public today will have the last word, they will express themselves. Despite those political meetings, their last word will be decisive,” he said.

Voting went ahead peacefully in most parts and the clashes which led to the eight deaths were over local council positions and not directly linked to the wider tensions in the country.

The Islamist – rooted AK Party is aiming to equal or better its 2009 vote of 38.8 percent. A vote below the 36 percent mark would be considered a huge blow to the PM.

As expected, there are huge discrepancies between the numbers provided state run news agencies, and the pro-Gulen, Cihan, news agency. Its data, courtesy of Ilhan Tanir [8]is shown below:

Another way of showing the official data, is with live updates from the polls throughout Turkey: 19:34 - Turkey local election map as of now... (AKP: Yellow - CHP: Red - MHP: Maroon - BDP: Blue) (source [9])