TURKEY’S authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered a crushing defeat in yesterday’s local elections, losing control of three major cities despite alleged attempts at manipulation and vote-rigging.

His ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was beaten by the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the capital Ankara, where Mansur Yavas won the mayoral race with 51 per cent of the vote.

Fears of manipulation were raised during a tense night when Turkey’s electoral commission stopped issuing voting data with the AKP trailing in the race to win Istanbul.

Former prime minister Binali Yildirm was forced to make a humiliating climbdown after making a premature election victory speech before the final vote was announced.

So far, CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu appears to be ahead by 0.5 per cent in the close-run vote.

The AKP challenged the counts of more than 80 ballot boxes in a desperate bid to retain control of Istanbul, which has been run by parties linked to Mr Erdogan since he was elected mayor in 1994.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said: “The people have voted in favour of democracy. They have chosen democracy.”

People’s Democratic Party (HDP) leader Pervin Buldan addressed a huge celebration rally in Diyarbakir — known as Amed in the Kurdish language — where it took back all the municipalities “stolen” by government-appointed trustees.

“Dear people of Amed, young people, women, welcome. This evening we are witnessing a historic process together. We are witnessing the great victory and success of Amed,” she said.

“This success is your success. This success is the success of women. It is the success of young people. It is the success of Kurds.

“We have overcome all obstacles, we overcome every difficulty and we won. We attribute this success and victory to all our friends who are on hunger strike, like Leyla Guven.

“Today, with the election results, our people gave the following message to the rulers: we don’t accept isolation,” the HDP leader insisted. “The policy of the trustees has collapsed, has ended.”

In one of the surprise victories, Communist Party of Turkey candidiate Fatih Mehmet Macoglu was elected mayor of Dersim with 32 per cent of the vote.

Speaking after his victory, he declared that the doors of the municipality would be be open to the public. 

“We will administer the municipality with the people,” he said, adding: “We will expand the production and administration system we started in Ovacik. We will demonstrate to the whole country that a socialist model is possible.”