Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is also the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), will not hold rallies for his party’s mayoral candidate in İstanbul, where a repeat election will be held on June 23, the Türkiye daily reported on Tuesday.
Erdoğan drew widespread criticism for actively getting involved in his party’s campaign for the March 31 local elections, sometimes holding several rallies in one day to garner support for his party’s mayoral candidates.
In İstanbul the AKP mayoral candidate, Binali Yıldırım, lost the election against opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu; however, the country’s election authority in a controversial move on May 6 cancelled the results of the İstanbul vote and ruled for a repeat election on June 23.
The Supreme Election Board (YSK) made its ruling based on objections from the AKP which claimed that there were irregularities and fraud in the election.
According to Türkiye, Yıldırım will begin to hold election rallies one week before the İstanbul vote in several districts of the city.