Turkey's Opposition Wins One Battle in a Long War

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. But given that the ruling Justice and Development Party has already lodged appeal upon appeal about the results, one thing is for certain: The country's ruling party is likely to pursue every trick in the book to thwart the CHP's control over Turkey's most important city. ...