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00:00Well, I am sure the opposition will rally behind him and support him even though he
00:06is in jail.
00:08People have campaigned for electoral office from prison in Turkey before.
00:13And with today's informal election, which he will certainly win as the opposition's
00:21candidate for president, they will continue to support him until he is actually disqualified
00:29from running in the next presidential elections.
00:32You know, with the charges leveled against him this morning, Ekrem İmamoğlu is now
00:37facing five separate court cases.
00:41So the chances of him being convicted on at least one of those cases is rather high.
00:48And if he is convicted, you can be certain that part of the sentence will be his banning
00:54from politics for five years.
00:56I think President Erdogan is going to choose the timing of the early elections very carefully.
01:03He will wait until Ekrem İmamoğlu has been disqualified.
01:08Erdogan has let everybody know that İmamoğlu is the candidate he fears most.
01:16However, the opposition does have an alternative.
01:20The mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavaş, a quieter person than İmamoğlu, less charismatic,
01:28is popular.
01:30And opinion polls have said that Yavaş is actually more popular than İmamoğlu and
01:36that he would beat President Erdogan in an election.
01:40So Jasper, I mean, you mentioned this briefly, but let's detail then how has the voting gone
01:46today in that primary election for the opposition to choose its candidate?
01:51Well, the turnout appears to have been heavy.
01:54I don't have the figures overall, but people have been streaming to polling stations in
02:00Ankara.
02:01They've been phoning each other, telling their friends to vote.
02:05And the polling station outside the Muhtar's office, the Muhtar is the neighborhood headman,
02:11if you like, in my street, the man in charge said 1,500 people had voted today, including
02:18two citizens in their 90s who came along in their walking sticks and several people in
02:26wheelchairs.
02:27I asked him what had surprised him about this election, and he said the way people had come
02:34without any obligation to express their anger.
02:38Now, this primary is an informal election.
02:43The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey will not recognize it.
02:48President Erdogan will laugh at it.
02:50But this exercise has given that half of the country that tends to vote against Erdogan
02:57an opportunity to rally behind İmamoğlu and take courage from seeing that lots of
03:04people share their view.
03:06And their view is simple, that the opposition should be able to choose its own candidate
03:12and not have its candidate disqualified by the president.