An electoral bruising for Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey

TURKEY WOKEAKCHPAKCHP AK up transformed on April 1st, after the country’s main opposition party scored a spectacular upset in local elections. It won big victories in the country’s largest cities, surging past the ruling Justice and Development () party nationwide and handing Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s president, a stinging rebuke. The Republican People’s Party () got 37.8% of the overall vote, compared with 35.5% for . That figure masked landslide wins in the big cities. In Istanbul, the biggest prize, Ekrem Imamoglu, the city’s mayor, coasted to another term. He got 51.1% of the vote, compared with 39.6% for his rival, Murat Kurum, a former urban-affairs minister.