Watch: Istanbul celebrates on the streets as President Erdogan's party loses city mayoral elections
‘Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,’ President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said in the past.
After the announcement of the election results, people in #Istanbul Kartal has begun to celebrate with drum-zurna. #BugünHerŞeyÇokGüzelOlacak #herseycokguzeloldu pic.twitter.com/C01u09qinH
— Sümeyra Tansel (@tansel_sumeyra) June 23, 2019
Ekrem Imamoglu has won the election for the post of Istanbul’s mayor after his opponent and AK Party representative, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, conceded defeat, BBC reported.
Following the result, the people of Kartal district of Istanbul took to the streets to celebrate. A video posted on Twitter shows huge crowds dancing to the tunes of drums and the zurna.
The elections were earlier held in March, but the results were annulled after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party had alleged irregularities. Imamoglu had won the March election by a margin of 13,000 votes over Yildirim, but the AK Party alleged that votes had been “stolen”. Turkey’s main cities Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara are now all under the control of Erdogan’s opponents.