Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rival may not be able to rule the country even if he wins the country’s presidential race, the head of Turkey’s top electoral body said.
Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council is the highest authority on elections, and remarks by its chairman could imperil Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu’s chances to be nominated by the country’s opposition leaders to run in the June elections after a conviction for insulting officials.
If a political ban is imposed on Imamoglu after he’s officially nominated, then “he may run in elections, but cannot get his mandate as a president even if he wins,” said Muharrem Akkaya, the head of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council, in an interview with Haberturk late Friday.
“That would require the rerun of presidential election within 45 days even if there’s a single candidate,” Akkaya said. Should there be only one presidential candidate left to compete in elections, the vote would be similar to a referendum and the nominee would still need to win more than 50% of the votes, according to Akkaya.
A court in Istanbul sentenced the city’s mayor to two years and seven months in prison on Wednesday. If the verdict is upheld by appeals courts, it will result in a political ban for Imamoglu, a member of Turkey’s main opposition CHP.
He beat Erdogan’s party twice at the local elections in 2019, giving him a wide appeal among voters.
Akkaya’s comments offer clarity into how the court ruling may affect Imamoglu’s ability to stand in elections and potential scenarios to consider in case of his candidacy.
“The judges are independent and the judicial process is still continuing,” Erdogan said in Mardin on Saturday, making his first public commentary about Imamoglu’s conviction. “It has nothing to do with us.”
A group of six opposition party leaders, the so-called Table of Six, “is trying to use this case as a tool of their internal political conflicts and we don’t plan to take part in such conflicts,” Erdogan said.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP, is resisting naming Imamoglu as the candidate despite growing pressure on him to step aside and support a more popular contender, according to officials of opposition parties familiar with the discussions. Meanwhile the Iyi Party, the second-biggest member of the opposition bloc, sees the mayor as their best chance to defeat Erdogan.
“The partners of Table of Six should rather announce their presidential candidate” instead of spending time with such debates, “so that we know who we’ll compete against in elections,” Erdogan said.
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(With assistance from Selcan Hacaoglu.)
