Six months from an election in which Turkey's opposition has its best shot at unseating President Tayyip Erdogan in 20 years, a jail sentence against one of its brightest hopes has raised the stakes in the struggle to agree a presidential challenger.
, including the main opposition Republican People's Party , has laboured for months to unite around joint policies ahead of next year's vote.
Imamoglu's own path has echoes of Erdogan's early political career. The president also served as mayor of Istanbul and was briefly jailed in 1999 before emerging on the national stage. "Yesterday's verdict shows Imamoglu is Erdogan's least favourite rival," said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Istanbul's Sabanci University.
Nevertheless several sources said the IYI Party, the second largest in the six-party opposition grouping, would prefer one of the mayors over Kilicdaroglu. Emre Peker, a Europe director at Eurasia Group, said Imamoglu's trial was likely to galvanise the opposition but it remained unclear whether the ruling would propel the mayor towards a presidential candidacy.
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