People in Turkey and North Kurdistan will go to the polls today to vote for the local elections amid a climate of tension and threats.

Today polls will open at 7 am and close at 4 pm in the eastern provinces while they will remain open between 8 am and 5 pm in the west.

The Supreme Election Board (YSK) has announced that all is set for the local elections to which 57 million people are eligible to vote for a total of 1,289 mayors across the country.

The voters will vote for the mayors of 30 greater municipalities and 51 cities, 922 districts as well as 386 villages in addition to more than 17,000 members for municipal assemblies. They will also elect 50,236 muhtars, including 32,046 for neighborhoods and 18,190 for villages, on Sunday.

Former Parliament Speaker Binali Yıldırım is seeking to win Istanbul against Ekrem İmamoğlu, the joint candidate of the Nation Alliance, while former Urbanization Minister and Kayseri Mayor Mehmet Özhaseki will race against the opposition’s candidate Mansur Yavaş in Ankara, the country’s capital.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) will run in 13 cities and has decided not to present candidates in western cities, including Istanbul, Ankara and Adana.

The last election was held on 30 March 2014. After the attempted military coup of 15 July 2016 the Turkish government has appointed trustees to 94 municipalities run by the Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and arrested 93 mayors across southern Turkey accusing them of “links with illegal organisation”.

Among the HDP and DBP politicians sentenced are former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş to four years, eight months in prison on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda.

The sentence was the first conviction for Demirtaş after spending 23 months in pretrial detention. He is actually facing a total of up to 142 years in prison.

Former HDP lawmaker Sırrı Süreyya Önder was also sentenced by the same court to three years, six months in prison on identical charges.

Thousands of HDP and DBP executives and members are in prison.