The mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglou filed his candidacy on Friday for Turkey’s spring local elections, hoping to repeat his 2019 victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Imamoglu will be the official candidate of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the March 31 election in the country’s most populous city. The conservative nationalist AKP has not yet announced its candidate. Imamoglu’s victory last time was seen as a major defeat for the AKP, which previously ruled the city. Erdogan himself was mayor from 1994 to 1998. The opposition won the 2019 municipal elections in Ankara as well.

In 2022, Imamoglou he was sentenced to a prison sentence of more than two years and deprived of his political rights after he was found guilty of “insulting” members of the Electoral Commission, whom he called “idiots” for nullifying his victory in the 2019 local elections. The elections were repeated three months later and he was again victorious, with a significant difference against the candidate of the ruling AKP party.

The sentence is subject to appeal and if his conviction is upheld, he will not be able to continue in his duties. He is believed to be politically motivated to exclude him from politics. Elections for mayors and municipal councils will be held in the country’s 81 provinces. One of the main issues is immigration. According to immigration authorities, Turkey hosts 4.9 million refugees.

Another issue are the consequences of earthquakes which hit the southeastern part of the country and northern Syria on February 6 last year. More than 50,800 people were reportedly killed in Turkey alone, and more than 35,000 buildings were completely destroyed. Seismologists expect more earthquakes of magnitude seven and above in the coming years.