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ISTANBUL Even before the important election of Istanbuls mayor has been settled, the opposition candidate, who claims to have won, is challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by pressing ahead with his promise to have an independent audit of the citys books.

Mr. Erdogan and his party have been in control of the city since 2002, and analysts and opponents say they have warped the economy through kickbacks and crony schemes. There has not, however, been real proof of this.

Now, Mr. Erdogans party is demanding a recount of the vote. The opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, says this is a delaying tactic. And, at a news briefing on Wednesday, he said the party was trying to erase town hall records from computers before he takes over and brings in independent auditors to examine the citys books.

His promise of an audit dramatically raises the stakes for Mr. Erdogan, who was confronted with a stunning electoral defeat Sunday night, when his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, was shown to be losing the contests for mayor in both Ankara and Istanbul.

At the Wednesday news briefing, Mr. Imamoglu said he had evidence that the Istanbul municipality had applied to a technical company for help in deleting data from its computers. In comments on Tuesday he had appealed to city workers to do the correct thing and not destroy government property.

There are many issues, he said. When the day comes, once authorized, we will go there and we will start sharing them with the public.

Mr. Imamoglu said he wanted the audit to examine not only the municipalitys budget, but also private companies that serve as subsidiaries and partners to the municipality.

This is the soft belly of AKP, Bahadir Ozgur, a business columnist, wrote Tuesday in the online newspaper Gazete Duvar.

The AKP-style municipal work would end, he added, when independent auditors entered the town hall and name by name expose how much money was transferred to whom; whose relative, brother, uncle won which bid.

Mr. Erdogans party has yet to cede to the opposition, and the High Election Council has yet to certify the results of Sundays election. Opposition officials have said the legal process could take a week or more.

Mr. Imamoglu demanded a swift declaration of the results. We want justice, he said on Wednesday. "We want our election certificate.

He accused the AKP of playing for time and suggested the delaying tactics were partly to clean traces of their misdeeds. He promised new rules of transparency and international standards of accounting when he took over.

This process here absolutely requires transparency, he told a news briefing on Monday. If you are going to govern Istanbul, which is a city of 16 million, you have to develop an exemplary model, and this is what I am aiming for.

Mr. Imamoglus opponent, former Prime Minister Binali Yidlirim, accused him Wednesday evening of trying to gain support abroad by stirring controversy. You do not have the right to tamper with the nerves of the nation, he said.

Mr. Erdogan had surprised many with the ferocity of his campaign in the local elections in Istanbul and Ankara, and some analysts have pointed to the importance of the big cities as a source of wealth for his network of family and friends.

Huge billboards of Mr. Erdogan and his candidate for Istanbul mayor, Binali Yildirim, thanking the public for their votes, have gone up around the city since Sunday night, a sign the party had been confident that their candidate would win.

What makes the loss heavy is actually a secret known by everyone, Cigdem Toker, an investigative reporter with the fiercely opposition newspaper, Sozcu, wrote in a column on Wednesday.

She added that Istanbul and Ankara were important to Mr. Erdogans party because they are the centers of distributing financial resources.

We are talking about tens of thousands of bids, public resources that can be identified with hundreds of billions, and the authority to spend them, wrote Ms. Toker, who is facing several court cases brought by Mr. Erdogans government for her investigative reporting.

A new administration in Istanbul could end the flow of major city contracts for construction projects and city services that have been granted to favored businessmen.

A new administration could also end payments worth millions of dollars to endowments of charities and foundations run by the Erdogan family.

In January, Ms. Toker published details of payments made in 2018 by the Istanbul metropolitan municipality to foundations and charities run by Mr. Erdogans children and their spouses.

Ms. Toker wrote that TUGVA, the Turkish Youth Foundation, received 74 million lira, or approximately $13 million by current exchange rates, that year from the municipality. Bilal Erdogan, Mr. Erdogans younger son, sits on TUGVAs board.

The Archers Foundation, an archery sports club, received 16 million lira, or about $2 million, she reported. Bilal Erdogan sat on the board, she reported at the time. He has been widely known for his association with the foundation, although his name no longer appears on its website.

TURGEV, the Turkey Youth and Education Service Foundation, received 51 million lira, or about $9 million, she said. Esra Albayrak, Mr. Erdogans daughter, is on its board.

The Turkey Technology Team Foundation, known as T3, where Mr. Erdogans son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar is head of the board, received 41 million lira or about $7 million, she also reported.

Her source for all of the payments was the 2018 Istanbul Municipality Report, which was not made public, underscoring Mr. Erdogans sensitivity to the wider disclosure of such documents by the opposition.

Mr. Erdogans signature success has been construction projects, from public residential building to infrastructure projects and expensive megaprojects like bridges and mosques. Opponents say that government contracts go to favored business partners, and that the AKP receives payments in a system of kickbacks from every deal.

Both the Ankara and Istanbul municipalities are heavily in debt, Mr. Ozgur warned in his column, and they may suffer if Mr. Erdogan, who controls the national budget, refuses them central government funds as punishment for the way they voted on Sunday.

Mr. Imamoglu, who announced his plans for Istanbul to international reporters Monday night, said he was prepared for that retribution and was confident Istanbul could generate enough of its own money to run itself.

He added that he had received indications of support from high within Turkeys state apparatus, if not in the lower ranks of the government, where support for Mr. Erdogan remains strong.

As president, Mr. Erdogan retains sweeping powers and could make life difficult for the incoming mayors, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the Ankara director for the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The AKP will control the municipal councils, and they have a say in particular in how the budget is allocated, he said. This control over the purse strings has long been a source of support for Mr. Erdogan and his party.

Ms. Toker reported Wednesday that there were signs already that the government was seeking ways to maintain control of resources. The Interior Ministry was taking steps to shift the approval of bids above a certain amount from municipal authorities to Mr. Erdogans personal control, she wrote.

In this way when it comes to investments in opposition controlled municipalities, the decision will be made in Bestepe, she wrote, a reference to the presidential palace.

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Erdogans Opponents Promise Scrutiny of Istanbuls Books ...