Turkey's opposition make huge gains in local elections

Erdogan acknowledged the electoral setback in a speech, saying his party had suffered “a loss of altitude” across Turkey.

Transcript

00:00 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has admitted defeat in local elections across

00:07 the country on Sunday. The vote was seen as a barometer of the president's popularity,

00:12 with his conservative Justice and Development Party seeking to claw back control of major

00:17 urban areas. Key battlegrounds lost to the opposition, the Republican People's Party,

00:23 include Istanbul and Ankara.

00:50 Roughly 61 million people were eligible to vote, but turnout was at around 76 percent,

00:57 according to the state-run news agency Andalou Agency. This is almost 10 percentage points

01:04 less than the federal election last year.

01:07 Thank you.

01:09 (whooshing)