ISTANBUL — Turkey’s biggest city remained on tenterhooks on Thursday as a recount of votes in a contentious mayoral election entered its third day, with the opposition candidate arguing that his winning margin remained too wide for the ruling party's candidate to overcome.
Ekrem Imamoglu, a former district mayor who ran as a unity candidate on the Republican People’s Party (CHP) ticket, is ahead by 0.2% of the vote in Istanbul, where more than 8.5 million votes were cast, according to preliminary results, putting him on the cusp of a huge upset against the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has controlled the municipality for 25 years.