Summary The party of Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a strong lead in local elections on Sunday.
ANKARA (AFP) - The party of Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a strong lead in local elections Sunday, despite turbulent months marked by mass protests, corruption scandals and Internet blocks.
If the national trend holds up, it would considerably brighten the outlook for Erdogan, who had gone on a weeks-long campaign marathon ahead of the vote widely seen as a referendum on his 11-year-rule.
Nationwide, his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) had a 46-27 percent lead in municipal polls over the secular main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), with a third of votes counted, CNN-Turk reported.
While the AKP was also far ahead in the sprawling metropolis Istanbul and many other cities, the race looked tight in the capital Ankara, with Erdogan's party narrowly leading at 45 against the CHP's 43 percent, CNN-Turk said.
"Results show us that Erdogan has survived these scandals with very little damage," Mehmet Akif Okur of Ankara's Gazi University told AFP.
"Voters believe that if Erdogan falls, they will fall with him. No matter how serious the corruption allegations are, the voters supported Erdogan to keep the status they have acquired under his rule."
Erdogan has been eyeing a run for the presidency in August -- the first time voters will directly elect the head of state -- or may ask his party to change rules and allow him to seek a fourth term as premier.
Despite much criticism at home and abroad over what has been labelled his increasingly authoritarian rule, Erdogan and his party have drawn large crowds cheering the man sometimes dubbed "the sultan".
Earlier Sunday, casting his own vote in Istanbul, former city mayor Erdogan had voiced confidence in a broad victory, saying that "our people will tell the truth today... what the people say is what it is".
Anticipating a poll triumph, a boisterous crowd of his flag-waving followers were watching TV coverage on a large screen outside AKP headquarters in Ankara, waiting for Erdogan to give a "balcony speech".
