Turkey's main opposition party appeared headed for victory on Sunday in a re-run of Istanbul's mayoral election, dealing one of the biggest blows to President Erdoğan during his 16 years in power.

Watch Euronews journalist Enis Günaydın's explain the municipal elections in the video player above

The Turkish leader congratulated opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu on Sunday for winning the election according to unofficial results.

Turkey's AK Party candidate for Istanbul mayor Binali Yıldırım admitted on Sunday his opposition rival Ekrem İmamoğlu was ahead for now, offering his congratulations and saying he hoped İmamoğlu would serve the city well.

Yıldırım, speaking minutes after Turkish broadcasters said Imamoglu had 53.6% of the votes after nearly 95% of the ballots had been opened, said the election showed that Turkey's democracy was functioning perfectly.

Reacting to early results, İmamoğlu hailed a "new beginning" for Istanbul and said he was ready to work with President Erdoğan to serve the city.

Istanbul voted in Ekrem İmamoğlu of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) on March 31, but the Supreme Electoral Council annulled the vote after the ruling AKP party alleged that there were irregularities.

In March, İmamoğlu won the election in Istanbul by a slim margin of just 24,000 votes in a city of more than 10 million voters. Just 18 days after taking the seat, the governor of Istanbul took over İmamoğlu's seat as acting mayor.

Who are the candidates?

İmamoğlu was previously mayor in one of Istanbul's districts. He is supported by the Pro-Kurdish HDP, the Islamist SP and the Good Party, another ultra-nationalist party founded by former members of MHP. İmamoğlu says he will be more transparent and be more cautious on spending.

Yıldırım was Turkey's last prime minister before the country transitioned to a fully presidential system. He is backed by the ultra-nationalist party MHP. Yıldırım promised Istanbul residents solutions for the heavy traffic.

Between 1994 and 1998, Erdoğan was mayor of Istanbul. Erdoğan has said that the party ruling Istanbul is the party ruling Turkey.

The election will be pivotal in determining the extent of the Erdoğan's grip on power in the country. Roughly a fifth of Turkey's population lives in Istanbul.

Polls have closed at 4 pm Central European Time on Sunday. </s> Binali Yildirim, the AKP candidate for the Istanbul Mayoral re-election, conceded defeat before the declaration of elections results Sunday.

More than 99 percent of the votes have been counted and the results give a big lead for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu gained 54 percent of the votes while Yildirim gained 45 percent of votes.

In the initial March 31 vote, Ekrem İmamoğlu secured a narrow victory over the candidate of President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s largest city, after more than two decades of the ruling party controlling the city.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly declared that “whoever wins Istanbul wi ns Turkey.” Istanbul, the country's biggest city, is key for the president because there it was where his political career started by being the mayor of Istanbul between 1994 -1998. Losing Istanbul for the ruling party, which has been in power since 2001, would have a significant impact on the AKP's standing in the country's political sphere.

In March, İmamoğlu secured 48.8 percent of the vote to Yildirim's 48.55 percent. On May 6, Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) decided to cancel and renew the vote. The decision came after the president's party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), filed a complaint to the top election board requesting a re-run on the grounds that some officials supervising the elections were not civil servants as required by law. Since then, most of Turkey’s opposition parties dropped out of the mayoral race to pool votes for İmamoğlu. </s> The decision to rerun local elections in Istanbul was not aimed at safeguarding any party’s interests, the spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party said Monday.

THE ELECTIONS WILL BE RESTARTED

Speaking at a press conference at party headquarters, Ömer Çelik said the Supreme Election Council (YSK) did not announce another winner of the mayoral elections but ordered that they be rerun due to some irregularities. "This issue is not about protecting the interests of the AK Party or another party," Çelik said. He added that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also welcomed the decision.

However, the YSK’s decision was condemned by Ekrem İmamoğlu from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) who narrowly won the mayor’s race for Istanbul in March 31 local elections but whose mayoral certificate was cancelled by the YSK. Speaking at an event in Istanbul, İmamoğlu said he will meet with the head of his party and other party executives and will take the "most correct" decision. "Nobody should have doubt about that," he said. İmamoğlu added that they will surprise those who expect trouble and unpleasantness from them.

The YSK on Monday announced that a do-over election in Istanbul would be held on June 23. The council members accepted the AK Party's objection to the election results, with seven votes in favor and four against. The YSK said earlier that the decision was taken as some ballot committee members who served during the elections were not civil servants as required by law. </s> Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayoral candidate of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was leading with 54% of votes versus 45% for ruling AK Party (AKP) candidate, with more than 99% of ballots opened.

The election was Istanbul’s second in three months after results of an initial March vote were scrapped.

In his victory speech in Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district, İmamoğlu thanked Istanbul’s citizens.

"We are starting a new page in Istanbul. On this new page, there will be justice, equality, love; while misspending (of public funds), pomp, arrogance and the alienation of the other will end. Today 16 million Istanbulites have refreshed our belief in democracy," İmamoğlu told supporters.

"I thank them all from my heart. You have shown the world that Turkey still protects its democracy. And we have shown other countries who try to go down the road we were choosing that it is no road at all." </s> Turkey's Supreme Election Council (YSK) has ruled for a rerun of local elections in Istanbul, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party)'s YSK representative Recep Özel said Monday.

The YSK ruled seven against four 4 in favor and annulled the results of the mayoral election in Istanbul. The renewed election will be held on June 23.

The top election body also decided to file a criminal complaint against the chairman and members of the district election council, election managers and other persons responsible for appointing polling staffs unlawfully.

Özel said the decision was based on unsigned results documents from the March 31 election and on some ballot box officials not being civil servants.

"With this decision, our demand for re-election has been vindicated,'' he said.

The YSK also rejected objections to election results in Istanbul's Maltepe and Büyükçekmece districts.

The mayoral certificate of the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) Ekrem Imamoğlu has also been canceled by the council.

The CHP will hold an extraordinary assembly meeting on Tuesday under the chairmanship of the party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is currently chairing his party's Central Executive Board's (MYK) extraordinary meeting at the party's headquarters.

The decision to re-hold mayoral elections comes in the wake of new pieces of evidence AK Party has uncovered.

Millions of Turkish voters cast their votes nationwide on March 31 in local elections to choose mayors, city council members, and other officials for the next five years.

Elections in Istanbul, where Nation Alliance candidate from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Ekrem İmamoğlu was awarded the certificate of the election with only a 13,729-vote difference were followed by lengthy discussions and objections by parties demanding a do-over election due to irregularities and unlawfulness. After the elections, the AK Party submitted an extraordinary objection to the YSK for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Maltepe Municipality and Büyükçekmece Municipality two weeks ago to cancel and redo the Istanbul municipal election.

The AK Party's extraordinary objection concerned four categories: Irregularities in vote count sheets, serious discrepancies between the number of registered voters and the number of voting ballots, some balloting committee chairmen and members not being government employees as required by law and ineligible voters participating in the polls. According to the AK Party, there were significant discrepancies among tabulated results with wet signatures and stamps, showing the first vote record, the final record and the total number of votes submitted to the YSK. There were also empty or unsigned voting records and irregular registrations of voters.

A probe of irregularities found that dozens of members of balloting committees linked the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Turkey.

Of 43 committee members allegedly linked to FETÖ, 41 were found to be customers of Bank Asya, a FETÖ-linked bank, two were users of ByLock, the terror group's encrypted messaging app, and two were members of FETÖ-linked labor unions. </s> For Istanbul, Sunday night marked the end of an era.

Ever since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan kick-started his political rise by becoming the city's mayor in 1994, Istanbul was firmly in the hands of his conservative movement. When the city finally slipped from his grasp in March — with opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu winning the mayoral election — Erdoğan successfully lobbied for a rerun of the vote.

Yet this rerun, held on Sunday, served only to strengthen Istanbul's desire for change: Not only did İmamoğlu win again, but he won by an even greater margin.

In March, İmamoğlu had beaten Binali Yıldırım, the candidate of Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), by just 13,000 votes in a city of 10 million voters. He increased that lead to nearly 800,000 votes on Sunday, according to preliminary results. İmamoğlu's decisive second victory — scoring 54.21 percent versus Yıldırım's 45 percent — prompted the AKP candidate to concede shortly after initial results were published. Erdoğan also admitted defeat, congratulating İmamoğlu.

As Istanbul nurses a hangover from Sunday's euphoric celebrations, here are five takeaways from the election rerun.

The cancellation of the March 31 result alarmed Turkish democrats and Ankara's Western allies. The reason for the annulment — alleged irregularities — made little sense: Voters cast four ballots within one envelope in the March election, electing a mayor as well as other municipal officials. But election authorities, under pressure from the government, only canceled the mayoral vote.

Many feared that the rerun would deliver a death knell to Turkey's ailing democracy after years of authoritarian crackdowns and consolidation of power under Erdoğan. Elections in Turkey have generally been considered unfair, but still competitive — and are seen as the only real means of effecting change, as reflected in consistently high turnout. If an opposition victory could simply be annulled, however, the last vestiges of democracy in Turkey would fall away.

But voters did not take kindly to the cancellation decision and punished the AKP at the ballot box, with many canceling their holidays and traveling back to the city in droves to do so. That may not reverse the damage done to Turkey's democracy, but it preserves hopes that it can yet be restored.

The president's name wasn't on the ballot, but it might as well have been. Erdoğan turned the March election and the rerun into a referendum on his rule, describing the mayoral vote as a matter of survival.

The result, then, is a crushing defeat for Erdoğan. The decision to call for a rerun monumentally backfired on the AKP; rather than undoing İmamoğlu's victory, it helped him to score the biggest electoral victory of any Istanbul mayor in 35 years — his 54 percent surpassing the 48 percent of his predecessor Kadir Topbas and eclipsing Erdoğan's 1994 result of 25 percent.

İmamoğlu, a member of the strenuously secular Republican People's Party (CHP), even won in Fatih, arguably Istanbul's most conservative district.

But losing Istanbul goes beyond matters of personal pride and popularity. The economy of Turkey's largest city accounts for almost a third of the country's GDP and its vast municipal budget funds lucrative infrastructure contracts, which the AKP has doled out to government-friendly companies as part of the patronage network that forms a key pillar of its support.

Over the past few years, Turkey has grown increasingly polarized, with multiple fault lines dividing the country. During recent election campaigns, Erdoğan has played into these divisions — calling Kurdish politicians terrorists to attract the votes of Turkish ultra-nationalists or pitting the secularist "elite" against the "will of the people," for example.

Ahead of the Istanbul rerun, Erdoğan and the AKP tried to tear down İmamoğlu with the same strategy: painting him as in league with terrorists and coup plotters, calling him a Greek, comparing him to Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But nothing stuck.

İmamoğlu, meanwhile, refused to hit back with similar rhetoric. Instead, he turned to "radical love" — the name given to the CHP's communications strategy, which recommends eschewing ideological debates and avoiding verbal attacks against Erdoğan or his supporters.

While Erdoğan campaigned on fear, casting Turkey as a country facing numerous threats from terrorists, plotters and foreign powers, İmamoğlu exuded calm optimism. His campaign slogan — "Everything will be all right" — encapsulated the opposition's upbeat message, which proved a hit with voters.

4. The AKP is showing signs of decay ...

This year's municipal elections mark the first significant dent in the AKP's hold over Turkey since it rose to power 17 years ago. Aside from a short-lived loss of its parliamentary majority in 2015, which was undone with snap elections, the ruling party has not tasted defeat in a long time.

Following the March municipal elections and Sunday's rerun, however, the opposition is in charge of Turkey's three largest cities — Istanbul, the capital Ankara and the secular stronghold Izmir — and has demonstrated that the AKP can be beaten, despite the odds being stacked firmly in favor of the government.

Grumbles from within the party have become louder amid discontent over the election annulment and economic policies, with Turkey in the throes of a recession. Persistent rumors of AKP moderates splitting to form a separate party have so far not come to fruition, but analysts believe the loss of Istanbul could widen the cracks within the AKP.

5. ... but remains firmly in charge for now

Following Sunday's opposition victory, some commentators were quick to describe the result as the beginning of the end for Erdoğan and the AKP. Yet the party still remains firmly in charge, with Erdoğan governing as an all-powerful executive president after constitutional changes were implemented last summer.

Erdoğan therefore holds the power to end İmamoğlu's mayoralty at any moment. In Turkey's Kurdish southeast, the government replaced several mayors with state trustees, though that move would be more difficult to pull off in Istanbul. But the AKP could obstruct İmamoğlu's work as mayor, as the ruling party retains a majority of Istanbul's districts and seats in the city council.

The president also has time on his side. Had he not moved presidential and parliamentary elections forward last year, Turkey would now be steering toward a twin vote in November, with the opposition able to build on its Istanbul momentum until then. As things stand, Turkey will not hold any elections until 2023, the centenary of the Turkish republic's founding.

But surprise elections aren't unusual in Turkey — and some are already eyeing a rematch: İmamoğlu, his supporters say, could be the ideal candidate to challenge Erdoğan for the presidency one day. </s> If, as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is fond of saying, "whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey," then his country's future now hangs in the balance.

On Monday, Turkey's Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) announced that March's Istanbul mayoral election, which ended in a narrow opposition victory, would be annulled and re-run in June. The decision, after weeks of government pressure, is a watershed moment for Turkey — and a monumental gamble for Erdoğan.

On one hand, the re-run gives the Turkish president the chance to retain control of Europe's largest city, where Erdoğan's conservative political movement has held sway for a quarter century. Yet it also risks empowering the opposition, and threatens to undermine his legitimacy as Turkey's leader.

"Erdoğan has built his legacy on being a popular and populist politician who’s able to win elections," said Paul T. Levin, director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies.

"The elections have not been fair, but it has been enough for him to claim to his supporters and the broader Turkish public that he is the man who is entitled to lead Turkey. This decision puts even this very thin democratic veneer into question."

Turkey's elections have long been considered unfair — as the playing field is stacked heavily in favor of Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) — but nevertheless competitive, with the opposition managing to force several close races in past elections.

In 2015, Erdoğan called a snap election shortly after a general election in which the AKP lost its parliamentary majority, but only after coalition talks failed (although Erdoğan worked to ensure that they would not succeed, going as far as to fan the flames of internal conflict). In Kurdish-majority cities, the AKP replaced several elected mayors with government trustees, citing terrorism charges. Never before, however, has Erdoğan refused to accept an election result outright.

"The pillars of democracy in Turkey have been wiped out over the last decade or so. Elections were not free and fair, but the result was taken as it was," said Ezgi Basaran, Turkey program coordinator at Oxford University's St. Antony's College.

"Since the 1950s, the ballot box was the only place where people in Turkey can voice their opinions freely," she added. "This is a tradition — we usually have an 80 percent turnout."

While the decision to annul was taken by the YSK, rather than the government itself, the independence of Turkey's top election authority is highly questionable. Erdoğan and other officials had put intense pressure on the YSK to cancel the vote over the past weeks, citing irregularities.

And as the Council of Europe's Venice Commission noted last year, the YSK's impartiality is "contingent on the independence of its judges as such." The AKP has for years undermined judicial independence, politicizing Turkey's courts.

European politicians and officials were swift to condemn the cancellation, with ALDE's European Parliament leader Guy Verhofstadt warning that "Turkey is drifting towards a dictatorship" and the European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur Kati Piri saying "this ends the credibility of democratic transition of power" in Turkey.

In mid-April, local election authorities confirmed opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu as mayor following a partial recount. İmamoğlu beat his rival, the AKP's Binali Yıldırım, by about 13,000 votes in a city of 10 million eligible voters.

The cancellation appears to have energized the opposition. In a speech on Monday, a determined İmamoğlu called the decision "treacherous" and told his supporters that they would win again in the June 23 re-run.

Levin said the annulment has "helped create something the opposition lacked" — namely "a dynamic political figure who can be the focal point of opposition to Erdoğan." A candidate of the secular Republican People's Party (CHP) with a conservative background, İmamoğlu has the ability to attract a broad spectrum of voters.

The cancellation also brings other risks for Erdoğan: The AKP is reportedly split on the issue, and the uncertainty brought about by the YSK's decision has further weakened the Turkish lira at a time when the country's economy is in recession.

The Turkish Industry and Business Association gently expressed concern over the re-run, prompting Erdoğan on Tuesday to tell businessmen to "know their place."

Turkey's economic woes were a key issue in the country's nationwide municipal elections on March 31, in which the AKP lost control of the capital Ankara and several other provinces. The Istanbul vote is the only municipal election to have been canceled.

Erdoğan seems to have decided that he cannot afford to lose his hometown, where he rose to prominence as mayor in the 1990s. More than a symbol of his power, Turkey's largest city also has a budget to match its size, a significant element of the patronage network the AKP has established.

"Istanbul municipality, for example, has been funding all sorts of foundations that are AKP-run," Basaran said. The municipality has also tended to award lucrative infrastructure contracts to AKP-friendly businessmen.

It's far from certain, however, that the AKP's candidate will win the June re-run. The opposition, having tasted victory for the first time in decades, is gearing up for a fierce fight. And with observers at every ballot box, "outright vote-rigging is very difficult," Levin said.

Yet Erdoğan is unlikely to have pushed for a re-run without having a plan, given the risks involved. In the first weeks after the election, the president at times appeared prepared to accept defeat before changing his tune.

"It’s a gamble, but he’s gambled before and come out on top," said Levin. "He must believe he has a way to win ... never underestimate Erdoğan." </s> The ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) candidate in the controversial rerun of Istanbul's mayoral election has conceded defeat after initial results showed the opposition leading the vote.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said on Sunday that the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu was leading with 53.69 percent of the vote, compared with AK Party's Binali Yildirim's 45.4 percent, with more than 95 percent of ballots counted.

"According to the result as of now, my competitor Ekrem Imamoglu is leading the race. I congratulate him and wish him good luck," Yildirim said.

CHP's projected win in the Istanbul election ends the 17 year rule by the AK Party in Turkey's largest city and commercial hub.

The Istanbul mayoral election was first held on March 31, when Imamoglu secured 48.8 percent of the vote, while the AK Party's Yildirim held 48.55 percent, granting Imamoglu the title of mayor with a razor-thin margin.

The AK Party proceeded to file an 'extraordinary objection' to the results, leading the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) to annul the results and schedule Sunday's rerun.

The Istanbul election has become far bigger than any local vote, as the rerun put into question the country's democracy and threatened the AK Party's stronghold on power over the last two decades.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who served as Istanbul's mayor in the 1990s - has famously said: "whoever loses Istanbul loses Turkey.

Erdogan cast his vote on Sunday amid high security in Uskudar, a predominately conservative district on the city's Asian side.

Bilkent University Assistant Professor of International Relations, Berk Esen, described it as being a "major personal blow for Erdogan.

"It has marked the beginning of the end for the Turkish style presidency and become difficult for the AKP machine to sustain itself without the corrupt use of Istanbul resources," he said.

After AK Party mayoral candidate Yildirim cast his vote today he addressed a gathered crowd with a statement seemingly pointing to the pressure felt by his party.

"If we ever made any wrongdoing to any rival or brother in Istanbul, I would like to ask for their forgiveness and blessing," Yildirim expressed.

Voting in Beylikduzu in west Istanbul, CHP's Imamoglu said Istanbul will vote with the rule of law, justice and democracy at the forefront of their minds.

"In the name of our democracy, in the name of Istanbul and in the name of legitimacy of all future elections of our country, today my people will make the most accurate decision," Imamoglu said.

To ensure no "illegal wrongdoings" were made in Istanbul's mayoral rerun, various independent mechanisms have been erected in order to monitor the voting and counting process.

For example, at the call of CHP, lawyers from across Turkey volunteered their time to travel to Istanbul in order to counter election fraud.

One lawyer was appointed to each voting booth erected in nearly 2,000 polling stations across the city.

Esen told Al Jazeera this is a very important for Turkish politics, as the vote counting process has not been very accurate and fair in previous elections.

"It's important for the opposition party to organise and mobilise supporters not only to come out and vote but also observe the counting process to make sure no votes will be stolen," Esen said.

"Lawyers … would be able to make sure that the ruling party will not be able to cancel the result on a mere technicality."

Since the state-run Anadolu Agency became the outlet to distribute live election results to the media in 2014, the voluntary Vote and Beyond (Oy ve Otesi) organisation has been trying to ensure "transparent and accountable elections."

After controversy surrounded Anadolu Agency's release of data in the March 31 election, in which is ceased broadcasting at 11pm when Imamoglu came into the lead, Vote and Beyond launched a new mobile application to post live updates.

The data is sourced from volunteers at each polling station recording "minutes" of the counts.

A group of citizen journalists who founded the group Dokuz8, also in 2014, have also released live updates of the vote counting. </s> Ekrem Imamoglu waves to his supporters following his victory in Istanbul.

Ekrem Imamoglu waves to his supporters following his victory in Istanbul.

TURKEY’S PRESIDENT RECEP Tayyip Erdogan suffered a bruising defeat yesterday as the opposition candidate in Istanbul’s controversial mayoral election won a significant victory.

Ekrem Imamoglu had won the first mayoral vote in March by a slim margin of 13,000 votes over Erdogan’s chosen candidate, Binali Yildirim.

Yildirim had contested that result and a new election was ordered.

With some 99 percent of ballots counted by Sunday night, Imamoglu was winning by more than 775,000 votes – 54 percent, with Yildirim on 45 percent, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu.

“It was not a single group or party, but the whole of Istanbul and Turkey that won this election,” Imamoglu said in his victory speech.

“Mr President, I am ready to work in harmony with you. I convey from here my request to meet with you in the shortest time possible,” he added.

Critics had accused Erdogan of refusing to give up control of Istanbul, Turkey’s economic powerhouse and a crucial source of patronage for Islamic conservatives since he won the mayorship himself a quarter of a century ago.

The Turkish leader conceded defeat this time, writing on Twitter: “I congratulate Ekrem Imamoglu who has won the election based on preliminary results.”

Imamoglu, a little-known district mayor at the start of the year, ran a positive campaign under the slogan: “Everything will be fine.”

The defeat is a significant one for Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, which has been in power in Turkey since 2002 and remains the most popular political force nationwide.

“It’s a colossal defeat for Yildirim but also Erdogan. His gamble (in calling for a replay of the election) backfired,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.

It comes as an economic slump and rising prices have dented the president’s reputation for economic stewardship, with the AKP also losing the capital Ankara in March.

“The AKP elites will probably try to de-emphasise the election and act like it’s no big deal,” said Esen.

Erdogan has already played down the importance of the re-run, saying last week that the choice of mayor was “only a change in the shop window” since the AKP controls almost two-thirds of the city’s districts.

For many conservatives, Erdogan remains a hero who has brought prosperity and fiercely defended the country’s interests since taking over in 2003.
The re-run Istanbul mayoral election concludes with a victory for opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu and defeat for the ruling AK Party.