Ekrem İmamoğlu, the candidate of the National Alliance in the elections of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM), which was renewed on 23 June with the decision of the Supreme Board of Elections (YSK), won the elections against AKP's candidate Binali Yıldırım, the candidate of the Republic Alliance. İmamoğlu win the elections by more than 800 thousand votes and scored a 10 percent difference. The polarization in the politics and the society was the most important thing that attracted attention during the election period.  Main opposition party CHP had facilitated the polarization AKP caused.

 

In this polarization, the support of the HDP despite the AKP's efforts to leave it impartial was decisive for İmamoğlu to win the elections. This approach of the  HDP that defines this strategy as a 'third path' continues to be discussed.

 

The Chairpersons and Co-chairs of the Labour Party (EMEP), Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), Socialist Reconstruction Party (SYKP), and People's Houses, evaluated the meaning of the results of the İstanbul Elections and the need for the "Third Path".

 

People's Houses Co-chair Nuri Günay said:  " In March 31 elections, the people carried this objection to the ballot boxes. People said it was possible to live together. The June 23 elections were an expression of the peoples' desire to live together." 

 

Labor Party (EMEP) Chairperson Selma Gürkan, who stated that the people's reaction to the AKP in the June 23 elections, was the best response, said that people responded with a burning effect against the unjust and unlawful election renewal decision.

 

Gürkan said: " We have been observing trends that the policies implemented by the government have been questioned among the workers and laborers, that the tendency to see the responsibility of the economic crisis in the current government has increased and that the repressive patronage policy has not been adopted by the public. These trends were seen in the June 7 elections, the referendum, the June 24 elections and the last March 31 local elections. Istanbul's renewed election has been a public slap for the government."

 

Socialist Reconstruction Party (SYKP) Co-Chair Canan Yüce stated that the great potential of the social alliance emerged as a result of the IMM elections and that the AKP-MHP bloc entered a downward spiral.

 

Yüce said that the results of Istanbul elections were a response to the politics of arrogance, marginalization, purification, disintegration and enmity. Yüce said: " Since the Gezi resistance, we have seen that the spirit of resistance that has fermented in all levels of society has once again surfaced. We witnessed this resistance spirit with the results of 7 June parliamentary elections and Constitutional Referendum. The path that made the AKP-MHP fascist power bloc disappear now has come out completely. ”

 

The Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) Co-Chair Şahin Tümüklü said :  "It is understood that CHP and İYİP who won the elections will asses the resulting picture on the basis of the regime's reorganization. The debates started on the new Constitution can be understood that way.  The only way out is Third Way. It is the independent program of the oppressed and the political forces that produce politics on their behalf. ”"