Turkey’s main opposition candidate was declared Istanbul’s mayor on Wednesday after election recounts were finally completed. New mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was handed a paper which formally granted his mandate as city mayor in a ceremony at an Istanbul court, Reuters reported. However, an appeal by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP) for the election to be re-run is still pending. Initial results from the March 31 local elections gave a narrow victory to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Turkey’s commercial hub, ending 25 years of control by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors.