The Communist Party of Turkey's statement came after the June 23 redo local elections in Istanbul as Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayoral candidate of the opposition, won the polls by a wide margin against his rival, Binali Yıldırım, from the ruling party:
To our people
The overwhelming victory of Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was elected as the Mayor of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality on March 31, against Binali Yıldırım, the candidate of AKP and MHP, in the elections that were unlawfully annulled and repeated does not only mean the invalidation of an attempt to usurp universal suffrage but also has dramatically changed the political balances in Turkey.