After a long vote, the municipal assembly elected Nuri Aslan, a member of the main opposition party in Turkey – the Republican People’s Party (CHP) – as the new acting mayor of Istanbul on Wednesday, following the imprisonment of the previous mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been accused of several serious crimes including corruption.
İmamoğlu was arrested on 19 March following an investigation launched by the public prosecutor’s office on charges of corruption and collaboration with members of a terrorist organisation. After four days in custody, a court ordered on Sunday his placement in pretrial arrest. Turkish legislation establishes that the government must appoint a replacement for the mayor in cases related to terrorism offences; but given that the court sent İmamoğlu to prison only for the corruption charges, in this case it is the municipal assembly that must elect his replacement.
The municipal assembly of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) is made up of 305 members: 176 from the CHP, 120 from the AKP (the party led by Erdoğan), 6 from the Turkish nationalist party MHP, two from the far-right Great Unity Party (BBP), and one independent. Two candidates were competing mainly in today’s vote: Nuri Aslan, nominated by the majority party CHP, and Zeynel Abidin Okul, proposed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Turkish media sources reported that the voting process lasted four and a half hours, and that up to three rounds of voting were necessary to elect a candidate with the necessary majority. In the first round of voting, the required two-thirds majority was not reached, with Aslan receiving 173 votes and Okul 123 (there were also 5 invalid votes) so a second round was held in which Aslan obtained 177 votes and Okul 125; however, given that Aslan did not obtain the necessary two-thirds of the assembly, it was necessary to go to a third vote in which the candidate was elected by absolute majority, with the CHP candidate being elected again with 177 votes.
Until now, Nuri Aslan had held the position of first vice-president of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Assembly, although he had already been provisionally elected acting mayor of Istanbul on 20 March, the day after the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, who, after serving as mayor of the Turkish metropolis since his election in 2019, was officially suspended from office when he entered prison on Sunday.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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