Ak Party

ak: In the March 31 vote, Imamoglu won by a razor-thin margin taking 48.8 percent of the vote to Yildirim's 48.55 win for CHP saw power shift in Istanbul from the AK Party for the first time in 17 years, though Imamoglu was Istanbul's mayor for only 18 days, according to The Independent. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the AK Party and former Istanbul mayor himself, had campaigned vigorously for his candidate, and his party protested the outcome. While 32 candidates were listed on ballot papers, including 17 independents, the real race is between the ruling Justice and Development Party AK Party candidate, Binali Yildirim, and opposition Republican People's Party CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu. The AK Party also lost to the opposition in the cities of Ankara and Izmir. 'Scandal' for democracy The Supreme Electoral Council YSK declared a rerun would be held after the AK Party filed an extraordinary objection to the vote count citing illegal Turkish writer and journalist Mustafa Akyol told Al Jazeera the rerun is a scandal for Turkish democracy. The fact that the Supreme Electoral Council not all, but the majority of its members complied with this scheme showed, once again, that the independent judiciary is fading away. The government couldn't present any credible reason for it, other than that it was a very close call, and they thought they could win in a rerun by mobilising more voters, Akyol said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.