Losing its luster - how Erdogan party's campaign put off Istanbul voters

The candidate of the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) for mayor of Ankara was comfortably ahead in the capital, but in Istanbul - the biggest prize in Sunday's local elections - Erdogan's ruling AK Party candidate had declared victory. CHP politicians and supporters, who had endured more than a dozen election and referendum losses at the hands of Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AKP since 2002, were well accustomed to crushing disappointment once the ballots were counted. "At around 12 a.m. we realized that we were clearly the winners of the election, that we had won," said Suleyman Celebi, an aide to CHP Istanbul candidate Ekrem Imamoglu.