Polls for Turkey's March 31 local elections closed across the country as of 5 p.m. and first results started to come into newsrooms around 6 p.m. as vote counting began.
With 35 percent of the votes counted at 7:45 p.m., the initial results showed ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) and the Nationalistic Movement Party's (MHP) People's Alliance leading the elections with 52.39 percent of the votes. Meanwhile, opposition National Alliance had earned 37.28 percent of the votes counted.
Voting ended at 4 p.m. in Turkey's eastern regions, covering 32 provinces, while citizens living in the other regions of the country continued voting for another hour.
The eastern provinces for which voting ended at 4 p.m. included Adıyaman, Ağrı, Artvin, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Erzincan, Erzurum, Gaziantep, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Hakkâri, Kars, Malatya, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin, Muş, Ordu, Rize, Siirt, Sivas, Trabzon, Tunceli, Şanlıurfa, Van, Bayburt, Batman, Şırnak, Ardahan, Iğdır and Kilis.
Around 57 million people are eligible to participate in the municipal elections, in which voters are electing mayors, district mayors, city council members, mukhtars (neighborhood officials or village headmen), and members of elder councils.
The voting process was mostly calm, however, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that four people were killed in some 310 election-related incidents nationwide as of 3 p.m. Two people were killed in a pre-election dispute, the statement added.
An election observer and another man were killed in a fight at a school-based polling station in eastern Turkey, the local governor's office said.
"Two of our citizens lost their lives as a result of a dispute... at the ballot box around 10 a.m. (0700 GMT)" in the Pütürge district of Malatya, it said on its website. Security forces arrested four suspects in connection with the deaths, the governor's office added.
After voting in Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the incident had "upset" him and that an official investigation had been launched.
"My wish is that no other incident like this happens again," he said.
The Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported the two men were shot after an argument between two rival political groups turned violent. The bodies were taken to a mortuary and police boosted security around the school where voting was taking place, the news agency said.
The men were members of Saadet (Felicity) Party, a conservative party. One of them was an election observer. Saadet Chairman Temel Karamollaoğlu said on Twitter they had been "attacked" by a Justice and Development Party (AK Party) candidate's nephew at the polling station.
Erdoğan called Karamollaoğlu to offer condolences, his office said, and vowed the culprits would face justice.
Elsewhere, Istanbul police detained seven people after a fight between candidates for mukhtar in the Esenyurt district.
In a third incident, a man was stabbed in the Kadıköy district on the Asian side of Istanbul during a disturbance among local candidates, police said.
Anadolu Agency reported that at least 21 people were injured in southeastern Diyarbakır province during brawls over the same type of local race. In southeastern Mardin province, at least nine people were hurt. Twelve people were lightly wounded in Şanlıurfa province bordering Syria.