Euronews found in our analysis of video views on social media that opposition parties and candidates came out ahead of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
ADVERTISEMENTAfter officials on Monday ordered a re-run of elections in Istanbul, parties took to social media on the campaign trail ahead of the June 23 vote.
Euronews examined the last 20 videos on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from all political parties, their leaders and the two main candidates running for election in Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu and Binali Yildirim, on Tuesday at 15h CEST.
We found in our analysis that opposition parties and candidates were more viewed than the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
Opposition gets 84% of views
At least 84% of all video views in this timeframe went to the opposition bloc of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Good Party (İYİ), Felicity Party (Saadet), and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
The AK Party and MHP, who form the ruling People's Alliance, claimed just over 16% of views.
One-in-three views on Imamoglu's videos
Videos from opposition candidate from the CHP, Imamoglu — who was declared the winner of the original mayoral election but has now been stripped of the title — were watched 29 million times, while President and AK Party Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's received 7.4 million views. This included both Erdogan's personal and presidential accounts.
The total number of video views across all accounts was 88.44 million, with 29 million of these on posts shared by Imamoglu's accounts — this means the opposition mayoral candidate got one-in-three views.
Tweet translation: "I know there are 82 million patriots in this country that will fight for democracy and the final moment for the Republic."
Akşener in second and Erdoğan comes third
Imamoglu was head and shoulders above his rivals when considering video views across platforms — garnering 13.7 million on his Twitter account, 12.2 million on Facebook, and three million on YouTube.
While opposition candidates' videos racked up 29 million views, rival Istanbul mayoral candidate from the AK Party, Binali Yildirim, had 1.96 million views on his posts.
Meral Akşener, leader of the İyi, came second after Imamoglu and Erdoğan came in third with 7.38 million. The leader of Saadet, Temel Karamollaoğlu, and CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu received 6.9 million and 5.4 million views respectively.
CHP and İyi Party lead among party accounts
CHP and İYİ received the most views on their parties' official accounts — the former had 11.43 million views on videos across its social media accounts and in second place İyi received 10.39 million.
These following parties filled the next spaces: Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) with 3.86 million, Saadet with 2.89 million, AK Party with 1.11 million, and HDP with 806,000.