The Turkish authorities have allocated mobile ballot boxes for patients whose health conditions do not allow them to go to the polling stations to vote in the municipal benefits that began Sunday morning.

Mobile polling staff went to the homes of bed-sick patients in the northwestern state of Aderna.

The staff arrived at the home of the disabled woman, Ayla Kuja Türk, 53, to enable her to cast her vote.

Following her vote, Koga Turk expressed her hope that the elections would hold the country well.

Voters began voting on Sunday morning to choose their candidates in local elections for a five-year term.

Some 57 million voters are expected to vote in more than 194,000 electoral boxes across the country's 81 provinces.

Twelve political parties are competing in the elections. The battle between the AKP and the MHP, the People's Alliance of the Republican People's Party and the Good Party, and the support of the Democratic Peoples Party and the Party of Happiness are raging.

The elections are an important test for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the first under the new presidential system approved last year.

Erdogan appeared prominently in the election campaign, taking part in 14 rallies in Istanbul alone on Friday and Saturday.