Thousands of supporters of the newly elected mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, celebrated his victory on Sunday night at his campaign’s headquarters in Istanbul, as the opposition candidate not only won the election re-run but substantially increased his majority since the first vote.
Imamoglu, from Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), had won by a slim margin in the original vote on March 31, but was stripped of his victory by Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council on May 6, due to allegations of irregularities and electoral law infractions made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The opposition candidate won nearly 54 percent of the vote on Sunday, despite having won the first election by less than one percent with just under 49 percent of the vote.
His victory in the country’s most populous city could signal a shift in Turkey as the AKP has dominated Istanbul and national politics for over two decades, with Erdogan himself serving as mayor of Istanbul in the late 1990s.
Source: Ruptly
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