(23 Jun 2019) "The joint candidate of the opposition, for the pro-secular Republican People's Party, or CHP, and the nationalist Good Party, Ekrem Imamoglu served as mayor of Istanbul for just 18 days before the March 31st election that resulted in his stunning win was annulled and his mandate was revoked.
Instead of boycotting the re-run, the CHP decided to mount a new fight for victory which it believes was snatched from Imamoglu's hands.
The 49-year-old former contractor and district mayor is now casting the repeat election as a fight for Turkish democracy.
The soft-spoken politician is leading a campaign promising conciliation and an end to divisions in the highly polarised country and has said he wants to be the mayor of all of Istanbul's 16 million residents.
But he has also signalled that he would expose corruption within the municipality, which has been led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party and its Islamist predecessors for 25 years.
He maintains that the governing party squandered the city to make its inner circle rich and is promising social policies to lift a quarter of Istanbul residents from poverty.
With Turkey's media almost entirely dominated by pro-government outlets, Imamoglu has had to lead a grassroots campaign, walking the streets of Istanbul to reach out to voters.
He has also had to fight off attacks by pro-government media and fake news.
Opinion polls suggest that Imamoglu is a few points ahead of his rival, due in part to sympathy votes.
His popularity has soared so much that many now tout him as a possible candidate to run against Erdogan in presidential elections currently set for 2023.
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Binali Yildirim, the former prime minister and close associate of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who lost to Republican People's Party (CHP)'s Ekrem Imamoglu in the initial March 31st vote, has had the unusual burden of explaining to voters why the election is being repeated as well as why they should vote for him.
The 63-year-old politician running as the joint candidate of Erdogan's conservative and religious Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Turkey's main nationalist MHP party, is the last person to hold the post of prime minister after a 2017 referendum expanding the powers of the president abolished the premier's office.
Yildirim served as parliament speaker for less than a year before standing for the post of mayor.
He has projected the image of a reluctant candidate thrust to the candidacy by Erdogan and appears unable to convey a strong message.
His main task has been to try and convince traditional AK Party voters, who stayed away from the polls on March 31 to apparently punish the ruling party over an economic slump, rising food prices and other grievances, to cast their votes this time around.
As a former transport minister, Yildirim has pointed at his record of improved Istanbul infrastructure and services and has pledged uninterrupted service to Istanbul residents.
In a bid to regain Kurdish votes in the city, Yildirim visited Turkey's mainly Kurdish-inhabited city of Diyarbakir, insisting Kurds had enjoyed unprecedented freedoms and democracy under the AK Party's 17-year rule.
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Istanbul mayor-elect Ekrem Imamoglu was mobbed by delighted supporters as he left his campaign headquarters on June 23rd following a victory over the Erdogan Party candidate in a re-run election.
Unofficial results showed businessman Imamoglu, 49, won a clear majority of the vote, prompting his opponent, former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, to concede.
Early returns showed him trailing well behind Imamoglu, 54% to 45%.
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