Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu re-runs for 2024 local elections

The main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu announced that he will re-run for the mayoralty chair for the megacity in the 2024 local elections.

“I am once again starting off to take Istanbul,” İmamoğlu said on August 15 at a press conference in Istanbul.

“I am taking a risk; I am trying to liaise with all parties,” he added, emphasising that he will ensure opposition parties enter the election with an alliance.

Türkiye is set to hold its local elections in March 2024, a year after critical parliamentary and presidential elections.

Both opposition and ruling block gave special importance to winning the governance of the city of 25 million, as İmamoğlu has taken the seat from the hands of almost two decades of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule in the 2019 elections.

Announcing that he will “work his best” to “get Istanbul once more”, İmamoğlu emphasised that what finalised the 2019 elections with victory was the alliance of opposition forces against the AKP block.

However, his work will not be easy.

The mayor leading CHP’s change movement

Having lost the May elections, the six opposition parties’ Nation Alliance has come to an end as the parties have spiralled into inner-party discussions.

İmamoğlu, whose name was among the strongest rivals to run against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the presidential elections, has initiated a “change” movement within the CHP, demanding a “change” in the party’s echelons.

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential candidature was the most criticised aspect of the whole election campaign. Some argued that his being a presidential candidate was one of the reasons behind the election defeat that brought the alliance to an end.

The argument resonated within the party organisations as İmamoğlu’s name started to be uttered for the leadership seat.

Run for CHP leadership or Mayor seat?

The members of the change movement push for an extraordinary congress to convene to ensure a leadership change before the local elections, while the party leadership stalls the standard procedure to hold local congresses. The main opposition is expected to hold its congress in the fall.

“The party is still in the process of congress,” Istanbul Mayor said during the press conference upon a question concerning the possibility of his party’s leadership and how his mayoralty candidature would affect this ambition.

“We do not yet know whether our chair (Kılıçdaroğlu) will be a candidate, we do not even know the date of the congress,” he added.

“I said that I am on the road” and added, “It is not politically correct to say that I am a candidate, there are procedures and processes for being a candidate.”

Is alliance possible?

With this veiled answer, he did not exclude the possibility of CHP leadership without leaving Istanbul.

Apart from in-CHP discussions, he also stated that he will work to “establish the Istanbul alliance as it was in 2019.”

İYİ Party, the second opposition party in the Nation Alliance, leader Meral Akşener, has publicly announced in their congress in August that the alliance has come to a “de facto end” after the election but has not closed the doors for the alliance in the local elections completely.

According to the exclusive reports within the party, the İYİ cadres are split into three camps, while some are discussing forming alliances with the ruling AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) block, while others are considering forming the same alliance with the CHP or entering into elections with their own candidates.

Istanbul and Ankara are excluded from these discussions. According to journalist İsmail Saymaz, İYİ Party is considering not to nominate a candidate in İstanbul as a veiled support to Ekrem İmamoğlu.

The Kurdish issue focused HDP is also a key element in local elections because Istanbul is the city with the largest Kurdish population in Türkiye.

“I believe that the opposition parties will act with this consciousness and that this issue will be understood as a supra-party issue,” İmamoğlu said.