Erdoğan Thanks Allies After Election, Skips Candidate

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has put an advert on nine daily newspapers on the June 23 İstanbul local election rerun which the opposition's candidate won by a landslide.

The advert was published in the newspapers Hürriyet, Milliyet, Sabah, Akşam, Star, Yeni Şafak, Yeni Akit, Posta, and Türkiye.

Delivering his best wishes after the election result, Erdoğan said, "The national will has appeared once again and our democracy which is on sound basis has won."

"Today, we are on the verge of a new era," Erdoğan remarked, saying that they will head to their targets for 2023, the 100th year of the foundation of the republic.

At the end of his message, Erdoğan thanked his party and his ally Devlet Bahçeli, the chair of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), but did not mention Binali Yıldırım, the AKP candidate for İstanbul mayor and a former prime minister, minister of transport and parliamentary speaker.

Erdoğan also thanked MHP MPs, AKP organization, those who involved in the election campaign on the field, those who cut their holidays short to cast their votes. (EKN/VK)