Officially, Turkish voters went to the polls on Sunday to elect municipal governments. But the ballot was also an informal referendum on the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister. His Justice and Development party, or AKP, took close to 45 per cent of the vote; the three main opposition parties took 51 per cent between them.
The AKP’s showing was a clear improvement on the 39 per cent it received in the last municipal elections. It won in Turkey’s two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara – though in the capital only by a whisker.
Nevertheless, it was not an overwhelming endorsement – not compared with the 50 per cent the party received in the last parliamentary elections, or the 57 per cent who voted Yes in a 2010 referendum on constitutional changes championed by Mr Erdogan.