The cloud of uncertainty cloaking Istanbul’s future government has yet to clear as Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Commission (YSK) delivered mixed signals on demands by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for a rerun of the March 31 polls in the country’s largest city.
The body convened for a second day running to weigh the AKP petition to invalidate the ballot that gave the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu a narrow victory. The opposition took heart when the YSK rejected the AKP’s claim that some 14,712 former civil servants sacked under emergency decrees in the wake of the failed 2016 coup were ineligible to vote and should not be counted.
