The HDP topped the polls in eight cities and 45 districts mostly in southeastern Turkey, according to elections data published by state-owned Anadolu Agency.

The pro-Kurdish party won in the large cities of Diyarbakir, Van, and Mardin and the smaller cities of Batman, Hakkari, Igdir, Siirt, and Kars.

HDP has also won 14 districts in Diyarbakir, eight in Van, five in Mardin, one in Batman, three in Agri, three in Erzurum, three in Mus, one in Bitlis, one in Hakkari, three in Sirnak, one in Urfa, and two in Siirt.

Turkish citizens voted in local elections across the country on Sunday. As of Monday afternoon, Anadolu said that 99.81 percent of ballots had been counted.

Elsewhere, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party suffered stunning setbacks, loosing control of the capital Ankara for the first time since the party’s founding in 2001 and was on course to lose the biggest prize of all, Istanbul, according to Reuters.

The HDP led a “Kurdish election alliance” with seven smaller political groups to run in the municipal elections. It fielded candidates in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, but sat out critical races in Turkey’s major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara in order to avoid splitting the opposition vote, according to The Associated Press.

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