The March 2019 Istanbul mayoral election took place on 31 March 2019, as part of the
2019 Turkish local elections
The Turkish local elections of 2019 were held on Sunday 31 March 2019 throughout the 81 provinces of Turkey. A total of 30 metropolitan and 1,351 district municipal mayors, alongside 1,251 provincial and 20,500 municipal councillors were electe ...
. In addition to a mayor for the
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (, İBB) is the government agency in charge of the municipal affairs of the Istanbul Province. It is one of the 30 metropolitan municipalities in Turkey.
History
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality ...
, all 39 Istanbul districts elected their own individual mayors as well as district councillors.
Early results on election night showed that
People's Alliance People's Alliance may refer to:
* People's Alliance ( ''Volksunie''), Belgian political party which split in 2001 into the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie and Spirit
* People's Alliance (Bulgaria), a Bulgarian party from 1921 to 1923
* People's Alliance ( ...
candidate
Binali Yıldırım
Binali Yıldırım (; born 20 December 1955) is a Turkish politician who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 27th and last prime minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He w ...
held a small lead over his
Nation Alliance rival
Ekrem İmamoğlu
Ekrem İmamoğlu (born 4 June 1970) is a Turkish politician and businessman who has served as the 32nd Mayor of Istanbul since 2019. He is currently suspended from office temporarily. He is the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate for the ...
. However, as the lead narrowed and a blackout occurred over the reporting of new results, İmamoğlu overtook Yıldırım according to the
Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) on noon on 1 April. Both candidates declared victory, with banners showing Yıldırım's image and the message 'thank you Istanbul' appearing in numerous places overnight.
Yıldırım and his
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) announced that they would contest the results, citing electoral irregularities and a series of enumerating errors when recording results. AK Party complaints for a complete recount of all votes were accepted by the electoral authorities in 5 of Istanbul's 39 districts, with the remaining 34 districts being approved for a recount of invalid and blank votes only. The recount process ended on 16 April, 16 days after the election, with results showing İmamoğlu still in the lead by around 14,000 votes, down from the 23,000 lead he had after the initial count.
The AK Party then submitted an extraordinary complaint to annul and repeat the election. The party's officials cited a claim that voters had been illegally registered to vote in the district of
Büyükçekmece
Büyükçekmece, historically Athyras (Greek: Αθύρας) is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 173 km2, and its population is 277,181 (2022). It is on the Sea of Marmara coast of the European side, west o ...
, where police began an operation to locate fraudulent voters. A number of ballot box officials and civil servants were taken into custody. A number of pro-government media outlets also accused the
FETÖ organisation of interfering in the results, but without any proof.
Following the conclusion of a full recount in
Maltepe on 16 April, İmamoğlu was summoned by the electoral authorities to receive his certificate of election. However, his mayoralty was cut short by the AK Party's request for the election to be annulled, lasting 18 days; on 6 May, the YSK decreed that the election would be annulled and
repeated on 23 June 2019. The re-run resulted in a victory for İmamoğlu with a much greater margin, so he resumed his duties on 27 June.
Candidates
The nominee of the governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP) is
Binali Yıldırım
Binali Yıldırım (; born 20 December 1955) is a Turkish politician who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 27th and last prime minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He w ...
, a former
Prime Minister of Turkey
The prime minister of Turkey, officially the prime minister of the Republic of Turkey (), was the head of government of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey from 1920 to 2018, who led a political coalition in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Tu ...
and the incumbent
Speaker of the Grand National Assembly
This article lists the speakers of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The name of the parliament of Turkey, originally and currently the Grand National Assembly of Turkey () since its establishment on 23 April 1920, has for short periods be ...
.
As part of the
People's Alliance People's Alliance may refer to:
* People's Alliance ( ''Volksunie''), Belgian political party which split in 2001 into the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie and Spirit
* People's Alliance (Bulgaria), a Bulgarian party from 1921 to 1923
* People's Alliance ( ...
, the AKP's candidate will have the unconditional support of the
Nationalist Movement Party
The Nationalist Movement Party, or alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party (, MHP), is a Turkish Far-right politics, far-right, ultranationalism, ultranationalist Political parties in Turkey, political party. The group is often de ...
(MHP).
On 18 December 2018, the main opposition
Republican People's Party
The Republican People's Party (RPP; , CHP ) is a Kemalism, Kemalist and Social democracy, social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest List of political parties in Turkey, political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal ...
(CHP) announced their candidate to be the serving Mayor of the district of
Beylikdüzü
Beylikdüzü () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 39 km2, and its population is 415,290 (2024). It is on the European side of Istanbul, located north of the Sea of Marmara, south of Esenyurt, east of ...
,
Ekrem İmamoğlu
Ekrem İmamoğlu (born 4 June 1970) is a Turkish politician and businessman who has served as the 32nd Mayor of Istanbul since 2019. He is currently suspended from office temporarily. He is the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate for the ...
.
İmamoğlu is likely to have support from the
İYİ Party
The Good Party ( Turkish: ''İYİ Parti'') is a nationalist, Kemalist and conservative political party in Turkey, established on 25 October 2017 by Meral Akşener. The party's name and flag is a reference to the tamga of the Kayı tribe.
Th ...
, which itself is unlikely to put up its own candidate.
Opinion poll
Election day
After an initial substantive lead for Binali Yıldırım had shrunk, close to midnight, to a mere 48.71 percent, compared to the 48.65 of his opponent, Yıldırım proclaimed victory, while the state-run
Anadolu Agency
Anadolu Agency (, ; abbreviated AA) is a state-run news agency headquartered in Ankara, Turkey.
History
The Anadolu Agency was founded in 1920 during the Turkish War of Independence by the order of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. As the Empire's capital � ...
, which provided the television stations with the results as the counts came in, ceased updating the results for Istanbul entirely.
In the early hours of 1 April, where Anadolu Agency results showed Yıldırım in the lead by just 3,500 votes, Binali Yıldırım made a short speech declaring victory. A few hours later, with no update on the results, the AKP's Istanbul provincial chairman declared that they had won by around 3,000 votes. Ekrem İmamoğlu refuted the AKP's victory claims and criticised the AA for not updating the results count. He revealed that the CHP's records showed him in the lead by 29,000 votes and demanded the AA to update their results accordingly. The agency claimed that it had stopped receiving data from the field. Only the next afternoon were new results provided, showing a narrow lead for Ekrem İmamoğlu. The YSK confirmed İmamoğlu's lead in the afternoon of 1 April.
Contestation and Annulment
Indicative results, with 100% of the votes counted, suggest that the opposition candidate
Ekrem İmamoğlu
Ekrem İmamoğlu (born 4 June 1970) is a Turkish politician and businessman who has served as the 32nd Mayor of Istanbul since 2019. He is currently suspended from office temporarily. He is the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate for the ...
won a narrow victory over the governing
People's Alliance People's Alliance may refer to:
* People's Alliance ( ''Volksunie''), Belgian political party which split in 2001 into the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie and Spirit
* People's Alliance (Bulgaria), a Bulgarian party from 1921 to 1923
* People's Alliance ( ...
candidate
Binali Yıldırım
Binali Yıldırım (; born 20 December 1955) is a Turkish politician who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 27th and last prime minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He w ...
.
After the provisional results became public, the
Justice and Development Party (AKP), who nominated Yıldırım, announced their intention to contest the results, stating that recounting the substantial number of invalid and blank votes could change the result. On 2 April 2019, the last possible day to file challenges, the AKP submitted complaints of alleged irregularities in all 39 districts. In response, the
Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey
The Supreme Election Council (; YSK) is the highest electoral authority in Turkey. It was established by the Deputies Election Law no. 5545 on 16 February 1950. After the 1960 coup, the Supreme Election Council gained constitutional authority by ...
ordered recounts in 18 of the 39 districts. The next day, Thursday 4 April, Istanbul's provincial election board overruled the decisions of the district election boards of the other districts not to hold a recount, and ordered recounts of all votes deemed invalid.
On Friday 5 April, it was reported that the AKP Istanbul applied to the Istanbul provincial election board for a total recount of all votes.
Speaking on Monday 8 April, President Erdoğan declared that the AKP had detected "organized crime" carried out during the election for Istanbul mayor and that the party had applied to the Supreme Election Council to annul the election, adding that "no one has the right to declare themselves victorious with a difference of around 13,000–14,000 votes". This while the AKP, on the day after the election, had hung tens of thousands of victory banners all over the city. The next day the AKP deputy chair confirmed that the AKP will apply to the Supreme Election Council for a new election in Istanbul.
On 17 April 2019, the Istanbul Electoral Council rejected a demand by the AKP to postpone its official determination until after the Supreme Election Council gave its ruling on the requested annulment, and declared Ekrem Imamoğlu to be the new mayor of Istanbul.
[Turkish opposition candidate declared Istanbul mayor](_blank)
Al Jazeera, 2019-04-17
Yıldırım, on the other hand, declared on 28 April that he was not someone to seek to win a lost election. "The elections are behind us", he said, speaking during a traditional "Graduate Pilav Day" held at Kasımpaşa Anadolu Lisesi.
Speaking to the General Assembly of the
Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association
Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (, MÜSİAD), is a non-governmental organization. According to 2021 records, MÜSİAD has 89 contact points in Turkey, 255 contact points in 73 countries, and more than 11,000 members.
The ass ...
(MÜSİAD) on 4 May, President Erdoğan called on the Supreme Electoral Council to annul the elections, stating, "My compatriots tell me, 'This election must be redone'."
The Supreme Electoral Council has then accepted the ''extraordinary objection'' of the
Justice and Development Party (AKP), and ordered a re-run of the elections with a majority vote of 7 against 4.
Büyükçekmece
The AKP claimed that around 11,000 voters had illegally transferred their residency to the district of
Büyükçekmece
Büyükçekmece, historically Athyras (Greek: Αθύρας) is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 173 km2, and its population is 277,181 (2022). It is on the Sea of Marmara coast of the European side, west o ...
in order to vote in the Istanbul elections. Police subsequently began an operation in the district, taking the civil servant responsible into custody and raiding homes of alleged fraudulent voters. Their actions were widely condemned due to the lack of solid proof of any wrongdoing, with some residents accusing the police of demanding them to reveal who they voted for. The AKP referred the basis of their claims to their own party-held records, where they claimed they could identify voters' political preference 'by their surnames', causing further controversy.
Results
The results as certified on 17 April 2019 by the Istanbul Electoral Council following the conclusion of all recounts – but annulled by the decision of the Supreme Electoral Council – are shown below.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:2019 03 Istanbul mayoral election
2019 in Istanbul
2019 Turkish local elections
Elections in Istanbul
March 2019 in Turkey
Annulled elections