Millions of Istanbul residents began voting on Sunday in a re-run of a mayoral e...
ISTANBUL - Millions of Istanbul residents began voting on Sunday in a re-run of a mayoral election that has become a referendum on President Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and a test of Turkey’s ailing democracy.
But after weeks of AKP appeals, Turkey’s High Election Board in May annulled the vote citing irregularities. The opposition called the decision a “coup” against democracy, which has raised the stakes for round two. Turkey’s economy is in recession and the United States, its NATO ally, has threatened sanctions if Erdogan goes ahead with plans to install Russian missile defenses.
“It will be interpreted as the beginning of a decline for AKP and for Erdogan as well,” he said, noting that the president himself had called the local elections “a matter of survival”. The campaign received a twist when jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan urged the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party to stay neutral in the vote. The HDP, which backs Imamoglu, accused Erdogan of trying to divide Kurds.Having campaigned hard ahead of the March vote, a strategy that many within AKP believe has backfired, Erdogan initially kept a low-profile this month.
“We have seen it all and we’ve heard it all in the past 20 years. What else is there to do? Imamoglu won and they denied him his mandate,” Mert said.
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