Striking result from the latest Istanbul poll! If Başak Demirtaş had been a candidate, the vote shares of İmamoğlu and Kurum...

Turkey has entered the local election atmosphere. Istanbul is among the cities where the local elections on March 31, 2024, are most anticipated.

In order to win back Istanbul, which it lost in 2019, the AKP has fielded Murat Kurum against the incumbent Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu.

The IYI Party, which decided to enter the local elections 'freely and independently,' nominated Buğra Kavuncu. While the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) will compete with Birol Aydın and the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi) with Azmi Karamahmutoğlu, Başak Demirtaş announced that she has withdrawn her candidacy from the DEM Party.

Sözcü columnist Aytunç Erkin wrote about the decision of Başak Demirtaş, the wife of former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş—who has been imprisoned in Edirne F-Type High-Security Prison since November 2016—to withdraw her candidacy for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) mayoralty.

Recalling that figures close to İmamoğlu told him, "Başak Demirtaş's candidacy is different from other candidacies. There is an emotional situation involved. We conducted a poll. Başak is also in it. İmamoğlu is ahead by a margin of about 2 percent. Başak Demirtaş polled at 7 percent," Erkin continued as follows:

"Yesterday, Selahattin Demirtaş's wife, Başak Demirtaş, also made a statement saying, 'I have decided not to be a candidate.' And thus, as the figures close to İmamoğlu also said, the sentence 'If a normal candidate emerges, they will remain at 3.5-4 percent' gained even more meaning."

Erkin subsequently shared a poll study regarding how the picture might take shape if the DEM Party were to field a candidate. Stating that the field research in question was conducted by SONAR, Erkin noted the following:

'NOW THE CARDS WILL BE RESHUFFLED IN ISTANBUL'

"Let's look at the situation after the undecided voters (12.2 percent) are distributed:

CHP candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu 41.1 percent,

People's Alliance candidate Murat Kurum 40.6 percent,

DEM Party candidate Başak Demirtaş 6.5 percent,

İYİ Party candidate Buğra Kavuncu 4.3 percent,

New Welfare Party candidate 2.1 percent,

Victory Party candidate Azmi Karamahmutoğlu 1.3 percent,

Homeland Party candidate Mehmet Sevigen 0.6 percent,

Saadet Party candidate Birol Aydın is at 0.5 percent.

According to the results, if the DEM candidate had been Demirtaş, it would have changed things; now the cards will be reshuffled in Istanbul."

News Source: 12punto