Imamoglu and Yildirim to vie for Istanbul mayor's office again?

Ousted Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu will again run as the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s candidate in next month’s repeat of the city’s election, the CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said a day after Turkey’s election board annulled the March vote.

In a speech to lawmakers in parliament, Kilicdaroglu said he believed Imamoglu would emerge victorious from the renewed election on June 23, and added that the election board was “destroying laws, the judiciary and justice,” Reuters reported.

Imamoglu had earned a narrow victory over Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s candidate in the March 31 elections, but Turkey’s election board on Monday ruled to repeat the vote over various irregularities after an appeal by Erdogan’s AK Party.

Erdoğan announced today that former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım will be the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) mayoral candidate in the election re-run.