Turkey held
local elections on 29 March 2009. The overall winner was the ruling party
Justice and Development Party, although the party saw a decline in its vote relative to the
2007 general election. The leading opposition party, the social democratic Kemalist
CHP, increased its vote share, as did a number of smaller parties including the
SP,
DTP and
BBP, whose party leader
Muhsin Yazicioglu had died in a
helicopter crash four days before the election. The third largest party, the Turkish nationalist
MHP, enjoyed a more modest vote surge. The election was not contested by
Cem Uzan's
GP. The AKP failed to take certain
provinces it had publicly targeted, such as
Diyarbakir,
Izmir and
Urfa, and did not achieve its goal of exceeding 47% of the overall vote. There was localized election-related fighting in southeastern Turkey, in which five people were reported to have been killed and about a hundred injured.