Turkey’s top electoral body has annulled the results of the March 31 election for mayor of Istanbul, ordering a re-vote for this weekend.

The move followed complaints of voting irregularities from the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after opposition candidate Ekrem Imanoglu appeared to score a narrow victory over the president’s candidate Binali Yildirim. The controversial decision to rerun the election has increased concerns over democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.

CGTN’s Michal Bardavid reports from Istanbul. 

To discuss:

• Giran Ozcan is the U.S. Representative for Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party.
• Ahu Ozyurt is a Turkish journalist and talk show host.
• Aykan Erdemir is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament.
• Metin Gurcan is a columnist and security analyst. He served as a Turkish military advisor in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq.

For more:

Turkey holds rates steady ahead of key election in Istanbul https://t.co/FkmMGDQ9Tx

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) June 12, 2019

Tired of treading softly, Turkey's Erdogan back on election warpath https://t.co/oG5F3RoJc2 pic.twitter.com/TlmaYyLNbY

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 19, 2019

Voters in Istanbul will head back to the polls on Sunday to choose a mayor, after Turkey’s election authority scrapped the results of a March vote in which President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party lost to the main opposition.

https://t.co/jCvljZRapz

— The Wire (@thewire_in) June 20, 2019