Riot police drove thousands of Turkish protesters off the streets of the capital Ankara with water cannon and tear gas yesterday after the ruling AKP narrowly won local elections.

Protesters demanded recounts and alleged widespread fraud after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s party officially polled 44.8 per cent in the city against the main opposition CHP’s 43.9 per cent in the city.

Supporters of other parties joined the rally in solidarity.

Opposition candidate Mansur Yavas was reported to be formally preparing an appeal yesterday as government opponents rallied outside the supreme electoral council buildings.

Volunteer vote-counters reported huge discrepancies between their tallies and the official results.

A number of CHP members quit their posts after their weak poll performances, but in southern stronghold Osmaniye Hurriyet the Daily News reported that it had found opposition ballot boxes dumped in bins outside six polling stations.

Mr Erdogan, in bullish form after claiming the victories on Sunday, warned his rivals would “pay the price” for plotting his downfall.

The AKP government has been caught up in a string of corruption scandals that have seen the PM purge thousands of people from the police and judiciary as they tried to investigate him, his family and his aides.

The ensuing crackdown has also seen Mr Erdogan ban Twitter and YouTube after evidence of alleged corruption was posted online.

One recording, confirmed by the government, included senior intelligence officials discussing launching a fake attack on Turkish soil to justify intervention in Syria.

“These poll results show more than who won, it shows who lost,” Mr Erdogan told a victory rally.

“Immoral politics have lost. Politics on tapes, on false recordings, have lost. Immoral and aimless politics have lost.”

But the elections did see the Communist Party of Turkey gain its first ever mayor.

After taking the most votes in the Ovacik district of Tunceli, Fatih Mehmet Macoglu said: “In these lands everyone is already a communist, it’s just that after these elections, now everyone has registered their communist identity.”

The party said the “AKP dictatorship has lost its legitimacy as a result of the struggle of the masses.”