Istanbul election

Erdoğan’s party to lose rerun Istanbul election

Turkish leader’s party had pushed for the original March vote to be annulled after the opposition won.

By EMMA ANDERSON

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's party candidate is set to lose a rerun mayoral election in Istanbul on Sunday, as preliminary results show the opposition's Ekrem İmamoğlu on course to win a second time.

With nearly all votes counted, İmamoğlu, from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), was set to win about 54 percent of the vote, compared to about 45 percent for Binali Yıldırım from the Turkish president's Justice and Development Party (AKP), according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

The CHP candidate narrowly beat Yıldırım in the original March vote, but Turkish election authorities later annulled the results, calling a fresh election, after the AKP alleged widespread "irregularities."

Yıldırım congratulated İmamoğlu on the results, according to Anadolu.

“We will try to support him in every work he will do on behalf of Istanbulites,” Yıldırım said.

Erdoğan also congratulated İmamoğlu in a tweet.

The election rerun was a gamble for Erdoğan to try to retain control of Europe's largest city, where Erdoğan's conservative political movement has held sway for a quarter century. The AKP also suffered heavy losses elsewhere in the nationwide municipal elections in March, with the opposition winning in the capital Ankara and snatching several other provinces from the ruling party.

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

In 2015, Erdoğan called a snap vote shortly after a general election in which the AKP lost its parliamentary majority, but only after coalition talks failed.