In March, Turkey's Islamist AKP suffered major setbacks.
Most significantly was that, for the first time in over a decade, they narrowly lost the election for Mayor, which did not just a political earthquake, but would eliminate the party's control over patronage in Turkey's largest city.
Faced with this treat, ErdoÄŸan petitioned electoral commission to invalidate and re-run the elections, and the commission, being largely a tool of ErdoÄŸan did so.
Well, in the new elections,
Ekrem Ä°mamoÄŸlu defeated the AKP candidate in a land slide:
Turkey’s opposition has won a high-stakes rerun of the Istanbul mayoral election, a serious blow to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and a landmark victory in a country where many feared democracy was failing.
Shortly after initial results pointing to a landslide win for the opposition coalition candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, emerged on Sunday evening, the candidate of the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), Binali Yıldırım, conceded and congratulated his rival.
The repeat election, designed to undo Ä°mamoÄŸlu’s narrow surprise win in the 31 March contest, was an unprecedented test for both Turkey’s fragile democratic institutions and ErdoÄŸan’s political future.
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The president issued his congratulations to Ä°mamoÄŸlu on Twitter after initial results showed that with 99% of ballots counted the People’s Republican party (CHP) candidate had increased his lead in March, of 13,000 votes, to an astonishing 777,000, or 54%.
Crowded parties broke out on Istanbul’s main shopping streets and in liberal neighbourhoods.
I rather hope that this is the beginning the end for ErdoÄŸan, btu I rather imagine that the this is the point where the opposition begins fighting with each other.