After enduring weeks of non-stop turmoil, voters in Turkey finally hit the polls in yesterday's local elections. The 2014 local elections were widely seen as one of the most important in the country's history due to a huge defamation campaign conducted internally and externally against Prime Minister Erdoğan.

After a massive bombardment of endless corruption allegations, doctored wiretappings - some of which were audio recordings of private phone calls or, even worse, sensitive national security meetings - serially leaked on social media like a soap opera scandal, outrageous lies, twists with no bounds and vicious labels such as "dictator," the people finally had the last word.

While I was penning this piece, 24 percent of the ballots had been counted. The ruling AK Party received 48.5 percent of the votes throughout Turkey, while the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) took 27.6 percent, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) 14.2 percent, and the Kurdish affiliated Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the People's Democracy Party (HDP) 6.7 percent.

In 2009, the distribution of the votes was 38.8, 23.1, 16.1 and 5.7 percent, respectively.

The AK Party seemed to secure over 20 metropolises, while the CHP took 4, the MHP 3, the BDP 1. The local election expected to draw a record voter turnout for local elections and serves as evidence of the people's legitimate interest and care in the country's political future.
The local elections race, which normally attracts less interest, became a symbolic largescale referendum. But in fact, it was a proxy war between Erdoğan and Gülen since the campaign against Erdoğan was conducted mostly by Gülen himself and flourished thanks to his alliances with opposition parties.

It is now known that Gülen's instruction to his disciples to double the number of tweets only affected the tweeps of the Gülenists, not the voters. But after 10 months of internal and external slandering, how is it that Erdoğan is still the choice of the people?

The result is based on Erdogan's abilities but the lack of leadership among the opposition is also a significant factor. The leader of the CHP, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who built his campaign over anti-Erdoğan discourse rather than offering alternative municipal services, was not even accepted in Taksim Square by anti-Erdoğan protestors during the Gezi Park protests of last summer due to his inadequacy. Yet the groups in Gezi Park, or the anti-Erdoğan initiatives, couldn't even choose another leader to represent them. Within that period, anti-Erdoğan media and tycoons incited President Abdullah Gül to take the lead and roll out anti-democratic measures against Erdoğan.

As the Gül scenario didn't work, Fethullah Gülen took the wheel and orchestrated the whole operation. Despite being the opposition's de facto leader, Gülen has come out short as he isn't a politician. What's more, his illegitimate activities have begun popping up.

The election results show that people still want Erdoğan's AK Party to lead no matter what the national or international media pump, or what Turkey "experts" dictate, or what Fethullah Gülen and business tycoons want. But more importantly, people reckon on apparent and strong leadership, not vast smear campaigns.