The main opposition CHP’s mayoral candidate for Turkey's third biggest city İzmir, Mustafa Tunç Soyer, has been elected as the mayor for the metropolitan municipality by receiving 58.02 percent of the votes. Soyer was the former mayor of İzmir's Seferihisar district.
His closest rival AKP's candidate Nihat Zeybekçi, the government's former minister of economy, received 38.62 percent, according to the latest reports.
İzmir’s former mayor, Aziz Kocaoğlu, was also from the CHP and won the seat with 49.6 percent in the 2014 local elections. He had been İzmir's mayor for three terms.
Soyer’s candidacy had been targeted by the People’s Alliance including the ruling AKP and the ultra-nationalist MHP, due to his father Nurettin Soyer's, a former military prosecutor, involvement in tortures of Turkey’s 1980 military coup.
The CHP won an overwhelming majority in 24 districts, while the AKP won four districts in İzmir.
Meanwhile, the CHP also won in two other Aegean provinces, Aydın and Muğla as well as the southern provinces of Antalya, Mersin and Hatay, all three which are metropolitan municipalities.
