‘Official result of Istanbul poll to be announced soon’

By Nilay Kar Onum

ISTANBUL (AA) - The official result of do-over mayoral election in Istanbul will be announced soon, said head of Turkey’s top election body on Sunday.

“Around 65% of ballots; 19,910 ballot boxes, have been officially screened in our system,” Sadi Guven, head of the Supreme Election Council, told reporters in the capital Ankara.

"10,560,963 voters cast their votes in 31,342 ballot boxes including the ones in prisons and portable ballot boxes," he said.

He said the council will issue the certificate of election to the deserving candidate, following completion of the appeal process.

According to unofficial results, with 99.37% of ballot boxes opened, CHP's Imamoglu got 54.03% of the votes, while AK Party's Yildirim received 45.04% as of 8.00 p.m. local time (1700GMT).

Imamoglu and Binali Yildirim of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party vied to run the metropolitan municipality of Turkey's most populous city after a previous vote on March 31 was annulled by the country's top election council last month.