Sweat drips down the face of Ekrem Imamoglu during a news conference in Istanbul on April 9, 2019. On April 17, Imamoglu finally received the mandate to become mayor of Istanbul, more than two weeks after he won local elections. Turkey's main opposition has the won the prize they targeted most in recent elections, but the national government won't make life easy for them.
Turkey held municipal elections last month, but the dust has yet to settle on the landmark polls. On April 17, however, the country's Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) took a major step toward clearing up the confusion by allowing Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) candidate in Istanbul, to finally receive his mandate for the mayoralty of the city from the Istanbul province election board. Confirmation of Imamoglu's win came more than two weeks after the March 31 election, in which the CHP candidate scored a razor-thin victory of just 13,729 votes out of more than 8 million votes cast. On the surface, the formal acknowledgment of Imamoglu's victory seems to put an end to the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) endless series of objections to the race for Istanbul.
