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
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
