ISTANBUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's ruling party on Tuesday officially submitted its petition to the top electoral board calling for a renewal of the mayoral election in Istanbul.
"We requested the cancellation and the renewal of the election in Istanbul by using our right of extraordinary appeal," Ali Ihsan Yavuz, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said in a televised speech.
Yavuz stated that he presented to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) all the supplements related to irregularities and mistakes detected during the March 31 election in the largest city of Turkey.
Due to AKP objections, the YSK had ruled for the recount of the so-called invalid votes in all the districts of Istanbul and full recounts in some locations.
The winner of the race is expected to be officially announced later in the day as the recount is coming to its end in the Maltepe district, where the process was interrupted several times due to repeated objections by the AKP and its nationalist ally.
Following the announcement of the result, the YSK will meet over the AKP petition, according to press reports.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayoral candidate for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), is leading in the race against Binali Yildirim, the AKP candidate and a former prime minister, by a margin of 13,827 votes, according to the CHP.
The CHP won the mayorships of Ankara and Izmir, the second and third largest cities in the country, in the March 31 local elections.
