Imamoglu beat Yildirim in the March election by a slim margin and served as Istanbul mayor for less than a month before he was disqualified by the Supreme Election Board on May 6. Ekrem Imamoglu (R), accompanied by his wife Dilek Imamoglu, arrives at Lutfi Kirdar Convention Center in Istanbul, Turkey, June 16, 2019.
On why the Istanbul race went to a rerun, Yildirim stressed that the governing Justice and Development (AK) Party’s choice was to recount all the votes, not hold a new election, but the opposition party failed to cooperate.' If my vote was tallied for the CHP opposition Republican People’s Party or another candidate, this was theft. There’s no explanation for this,' he added.He added that if the CHP had not resisted the vote recount, the election would not have to be repeated and the public would not be confused.For his part, Imamoglu rejected the charge of theft, asking who had stolen the March 31 election, in which he was briefly named mayor before Turkey’s election authority overturned the results over irregularities and illegalities.' Are your Yildirim’s words for AK Party polling officials, for the Good (IYI) Party, for the MHP’s Nationalist Movement Party or the CHP’s?” he asked, referring to major parties that competed on March 31. “Or for the heads of balloting committees?' He added.Imamoglu characterized the Istanbul rerun as part of the fight for democracy, 'not just a local election.' Speaking on Imamoglu’s attempt to copy data from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality during his brief tenure in office, Yildirim said:'This copying data work is a FETO Fetullah Terror Organization tactic.
FETO did it in its history,” referring to the group behind the defeated 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.Yildirim stressed that three experts from outside the municipality were also appointed for the process of copying the data.'
It’s been one week since Ekrem Imamoglu was voted into office as mayor of Istanbul in an election rerun, and the significance of his landslide victory is more profound than has been widely understood. The lead candidate of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has given hope not only to the hundreds of thousands of Istanbulites who flooded the streets with fanfare and joy and the millions of other Turks, including myself, watching from afar. Imamoglu’s victory also offers the outlines of a cure for other countries suffering from the same political toxin that has been eating Turkish democracy from within: populism.