Spotlight: Turks head to ballot boxes for crucial municipal elections

ANKARA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Turkish voters are electing their mayors and local councillors on Sunday, a race largely seen as a test for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party amid an economic downturn.

In addition to city and district mayors, the more than 57 million registered Turkish voters will pick members of provincial and district councils and neighborhood heads for the next five years.

Political parties have been making their efforts to canvass voters this week, raising national and local matters on the campaign tail.

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) established the People's Alliance in 2018 in conjunction with its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

The main challenger to Erdogan's bloc is the Nation Alliance, which includes the center-left main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the right-wing Good (IYI) Party.

Apart from the two big alliances, eight political parties and some independent candidates will race for various local posts.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and economic hub, and the capital Ankara are seen as the most intense battlegrounds between the two alliances, which campaigned hard for weeks ahead of polls to seduce voters who have been tired of successive and divisive elections in recent years.

The polls on Sunday will be the first local elections in Turkey under the new presidential system, after Erdogan secured extensive executive powers in an election last June, which officially shifted Turkey's parliamentary system to executive presidency.

Following the local elections, Turkey will enter a four-year-long election-free period until presidential and parliamentary elections in 2023.

The Turkish economy, which slipped into its first recession in a decade after years of sustained and acclaimed growth, has topped the election agenda.

The economy has been hit hard since the Turkish lira plummeted against the U.S. dollar last year, losing as much as 30 percent of its value amid a diplomatic spat with the United States.

Although the government took measures including raising interest rates to shore up the embattled currency, the ensuing soaring inflation and unemployment have dealt a hard blow to households across the country.

A new currency meltdown, coupled with the plunge of the stock market 10 days before the ballot, shows again the vulnerability of the Turkish economy, as the central bank attempted to bolster lira.

Erdogan, who has ruled the country as prime minister and then president since 2003, has led Turkey's economic transition and growth as an emerging market.

Analysts believe even though Erdogan's AKP loses some big cities, it will have a limited effect on how the leader governs Turkey despite a possible psychological blow to his unshaken power.