Analyst: Cancellation of mayor election results in Istanbul indicates Turkey's entry into new period

May 29, 2019 - PRLog -- For the first time since 1994, the candidate from the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has lost mayor election in Istanbul, and despite the election board's decision to cancel the voting results, Turkey has already entered a new historical period. This is stated by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) Senior Policy Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş in her article "The battle of Istanbul will shape Turkey's future", published in a number of foreign media.

"It came as a surprise to many international observers when, on 31 March, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost local elections in many of Turkey's major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara. A city of 16 million people, Istanbul has been the centrepiece of AKP's financial system and social networks since 1994 – when a young Erdogan became mayor and started his march to power. Few suspected that Erdogan could lose an election there. Yet the vote not only took Istanbul from Turkey's ruling party but also challenged the notion that Erdogan was invincible and would remain president for life," the article says.

Even more surprising was the winner, the author believes.

"Despite the government's near-total control over media coverage and its self-serving use of state resources, a relatively unknown politician from the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), Ekrem Imamoglu, defeated Binali Yildirim, an AKP heavyweight and a former prime minister of Turkey – albeit with a lead of less than 1 percent of the vote. Imamoglu patched together the type of rainbow coalition the Turkish opposition has been dreaming of for more than a decade, gathering secularists, liberals, nationalists, Kurds, and even conservatives around the idea of a more liveable city. To Erdogan's politically divisive rhetoric, he responded with a mantra of social cohesion – and it seemed to work," Aslı Aydıntaşbaş notes.

However, according to her, the battle of Istanbul is not yet over – it's only beginning.

"On 6 May, after a full month of lobbying, the AKP persuaded Turkey's electoral board to void the Istanbul result due to alleged irregularities – once again proving wrong those who thought Turkey still had independent institutions beyond Erdogan's reach," the analyst says.

She believes that the decision to annul the vote was a travesty of justice, and whatever happens in the next election, Turkey has already entered a new period.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/66144-2019