Istanbul's new mayor rallied hundreds of thousands of supporters on Sunday to celebrate a "new beginning", urging people to unite after his highly contested win against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party. Ekrem Imamoglu, 49, of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), narrowly edged out his rival to capture the Istanbul mayor's office, a stinging setback to Erdogan's AKP after a decade and a half in power.
As Imamoglu addressed the Istanbul rally, over in Ankara the CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was punched and kicked by a mob during a funeral for a soldier killed in clashes with Kurdish rebels. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is still seeking a rerun of the March 31 Istanbul ballot, but electoral authorities last week handed Imamoglu his mandate after he won a slim 13,000-vote lead over AKP's Binali Yildirim.
Waving Turkish flags and portraits of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, thousands of Imamoglu supporters packed the vast Maltepe shoreside area on the Asian side of Istanbul for the rally.
Imamoglu, a soft-spoken former district mayor who struck a conciliatory tone throughout the heated race, has vowed to serve all citizens of the 16-million strong city, regardless of their political inclinations. "I will work, produce solutions and achieve results. This is my promise to each and every one of the 16 million Istanbul people," he told the rally.
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