CHP's İmamoğlu: 'I will Lean on 16 Million People'

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Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) winning candidate for the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality according to the unofficial results, has spoken on President and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statement on municipal councils.

Erdoğan said earlier in the day, "If a mayor doesn't have a municipal council to lean on, he or she can neither establish commissions nor get a budget."

"My hands are not tied"

"We manage to govern, we achieve it, they shouldn't have any doubts. Maybe they think this way; their party have a deficiency in terms of the ability to govern with a different political understanding," İmamoğlu responded.

"But I don't have such deficiency. We will bring İstanbul with such a transparent administration that İstanbul's 39 district mayors will be work together in a very equal way.

"If there is service not to İstanbul but to other things, this will occur before the citizen's eyes. And my hands are not tied, I will lean on 16 million people."

"İstanbul will be the center of a story of democracy"

"I will invite everybody to work, we will manage the process harmoniously. They will witness this too.

"In terms of democratization in Turkey, İstanbul will be the center of a story of democracy that will newly begin. We can achieve that. If we don't discriminate people on the streets, we won't discriminate in the [municipal] council." (PT/VK)