Page 11 - MEOG Week 25

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have refreshed our belief in democracy. 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.” Imamoglu was also cited as saying: “Mr President [Erdogan], I am ready to work in harmony with you.”
Prior to voting, Imamoglu told reporters: “Today our people will make the best decision ... for the sake of our democracy, for Istanbul and also for the legitimacy of all future elections.”
Imamoglu, mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikduzu district, has won plaudits for responding to angry populist rhetoric by urging his support- ers to extend the hand to their opponents as part of a campaign of “radical love” despite their di erences.
Some commentators even speculate he could be a future president of Turkey. ere is some prospect of those who would seek to dislodge Erdogan getting a chance in early elections, but as things stand no polls are scheduled to take place until 2023.
In conceding defeat, Yildirim, Turkey’s prime
minister until the post was abolished in favour of making Erdogan executive president in July last year as Turkey switched from parliamentary democracy to presidential democracy, told sup- porters: “I congratulate him [Imamoglu] and wish him good luck.” Yildirim, who was PM for two years, was elected Speaker of the new parlia- ment in February. Before that he served as min- ister of transportation and communication. He is one of the founders of the AKP.
In the local elections at the end of March, the AKP also lost control of Ankara and several other key Turkish cities. But Istanbul, the most in uential part of the government’s uno cial network of patronage, is the most serious loss for the party formed in 2001.
Journalist and writer Murat Yetkin told Reu- ters earlier on June 23 before voting was under way in earnest:
“If İmamoglu wins again, there’s going to be a chain of serious changes in Turkish politics.” “It will be interpreted as the beginning of a decline forAKPandforErdoganaswell,”headded,not- ing that the president himself had called the local elections “a matter of survival [for Turkey]”.™
Week 25 25•June•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P11