ISTANBUL: Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition candidate who won an Istanbul mayoral election that was voided weeks later, retook office in Turkey’s largest city following his repeat win, a stunning victory he called a step toward repairing a damaged democracy.
Cheered on by supporters of the opposition Republican People’s Party, Imamoglu returned to Istanbul City Hall to take up the seat he held for 18 days before Turkey’s top election board nullified the first election for mayor and ordered a rerun.
“The people of Istanbul have confirmed their attachment to the republic and to democracy,” Imamoglu told the jubilant, flag-waving crowd. “This confirmation has shown the world that Turkey isn’t any ordinary Middle Eastern country. The belief in democracy runs deep in Turkey’s veins.”
Imamoglu won the first vote on March 31 by a narrow margin. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governing party challenged the results, and recounts of ballots from some Istanbul districts went on for weeks before Imamoglu was inaugurated as mayor.
The electoral council eventually granted a request from the president’s party to annul the election. The decision aroused concerns of a possibly deliberate undermining of democracy in Turkey, where Erdogan is accused of increasing authoritarianism.
In a rebuke to the ruling party, voters returned Imamoglu to the mayor’s office by a much bigger margin. He received 54.21 percent of the vote — 806,000 votes more than the governing Justice and Development Party’s candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
In his speech — interrupted by chants of “Mayor Ekrem” and his campaign slogan “everything will be beautiful” — Imamoglu promised to end what he described as the “squandering” of the city’s public funds by the governing party.
“The squandering will end, the belt-tightening will start. Istanbul’s 16 million (people) will share the city’s blessings,” he said.
Earlier, authorities at Istanbul’s main court presented Imamoglu with a framed certificate confirming his mandate to rule over Turkey’s largest city and commercial hub for the next five years. Istanbul’s governor — the interim mayor — later handed over the municipality’s official seal to Imamoglu in a televised ceremony.
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu hails victory as step to repair democracy
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu hails victory as step to repair democracy
- Imamoglu returned to Istanbul City Hall to take up the seat he held for 18 days before Turkey’s top election board nullified the first election for mayor
- In a rebuke to the ruling AK Party, voters returned Imamoglu to the mayor’s office by a much bigger margin
Sudan drone attack on Darfur market kills 10: rescuers
- According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, more than 50,000 civilians have fled the region since the end of October
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: A drone attack on a busy market in Sudan’s North Darfur state killed 10 people over the weekend, first responders said on Sunday, without saying who was responsible.
The attack comes as fighting intensified elsewhere in the country, leading aid workers to be evacuated on Sunday from Kadugli, a besieged, famine-hit city in the south.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a conflict which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The North Darfur Emergency Rooms Council, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan, said a drone strike hit Al-Harra market in the RSF-controlled town of Malha on Saturday.
The attack killed 10 people, it said.
The council did not identify who carried out the attack, which it said had also sparked “fire in shops and caused extensive material damage.”
There was no immediate comment from either the Sudanese army or the RSF.
The war’s current focal point is now South Kordofan and clashes have escalated in Kadugli, the state capital, where a drone attack last week killed eight people as they attempted to flee the army-controlled city.
A source from a humanitarian organization operating in Kadugli told AFP on Sunday that humanitarian groups had “evacuated all their workers” from the city because of the security conditions.
The evacuation followed the United Nations’ decision to relocate its logistics hub from Kadugli, the source said on condition of anonymity, without specifying where the staff had gone.
- Measles outbreak -
Kadugli and nearby Dilling have been besieged by paramilitary forces since the war erupted.
Last week, the RSF claimed control of the Brno area, a key defensive line on the road between Kadugli and Dilling.
After dislodging the army in October from the western city of El-Fasher — its last stronghold in the Darfur region — the RSF has shifted its focus to resource-rich Kordofan, a strategic crossroads linking army-held northern and eastern territories with RSF-held Darfur in the west.
Like Darfur, Kordofan is home to numerous non-Sudanese Arab ethnic groups. Much of the violence that followed the fall of El-Fasher was reportedly ethnically targeted.
Communications in Kordofan have been cut, and the United Nations declared a famine in Kadugli last month.
According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, more than 50,000 civilians have fled the region since the end of October.
Residents have been forced to forage for food in nearby forests, according to accounts gathered by AFP.
The conflict has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, east and center while the RSF dominates all five state capitals in Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.
Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Sunday that measles was spreading in three of the four states in Darfur, a vast region covering much of western Sudan.
“A preventable measles outbreak is spreading across Central, South and West Darfur,” the organization said in a statement.
“Since September 2025, MSF teams have treated more than 1,300 cases. Delays in vaccine transport, approvals and coordination, by authorities and key partners are leaving children unprotected.”
