2014 Ankara mayoral election

2014 Ankara mayoral election

30 March 2014
 
Candidate   İbrahim Melih Gökçek     Mansur Yavaş  
Party AK Party CHP
Popular vote 1,416,770 1,385,038
Percentage 44.82% 43.82%

Mayor before election

Melih Gökçek
AK Party

Elected mayor

Melih Gökçek
AK Party

Mayoral elections were held in the Turkish province of Ankara as part of nationwide local elections on 30 March 2014. A total of 26 mayors, one for each of the 25 districts of Ankara and one for the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, were elected.

The election of Ankara's Metropolitan Mayor was highly controversial, with several allegations of electoral fraud overshadowing the counting process and causing numerous requests for recounts by the opposition Republican People's Party, whose candidate Mansur Yavaş was initially on course to win the election. Finishing just one percentage point behind his rival Melih Gökçek and with evidence of ballot box miscalculations, Yavaş has since taken numerous allegations of misconduct to the European Court of Human Rights. Despite Gökçek's election being upheld by the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey, most commentators and journalists believe that Yavaş was the actual winner of the election.