The Grand Mobilization: #HerŞeyÇokGüzelOlacak

First was anger and disappointment. There was the talk of boycotts. At that time, I thought how difficult it must be for the opposition leadership. Then Ekrem İmamoğlu made yet another good speech and de facto started the new campaign. The campaign hashtag is #HerŞeyÇokGüzelOlacak [Everything will be all right] and since then there seems to be a massive mobilization online and offline. A significant development is that many well-known artists ( musicians, actors and actresses etc) joined the campaign. It is a threshold. Many people are afraid to announce their political allegiances due to financial pressures. Metin Cihan collected some of these artists’ tweets:

Some international figures are also joining Twitter mobilization. Well, honestly I did not know [sincerely!] who Stoya was until she had tweeted before for another Turkish cause.

Many CHP municipalities asked citizens not to come to vacation during the day of the election and urged them to vote. It is a long-held belief that secular citizens prefer to go on vacation instead of voting. I believe this has changed recently in the increasingly polarized political scene. In the meantime, not Turkish Airlines (of course!) but other air travel companies are offering free cancellations or rebookings.

Here are some funny municipality social media posts. Thanks to Menekşe Tokyay I could find most of them together.

ISTANBULISTANBUL (Reuters) – Istanbul residents are cancelling holiday bookings for the weekend of June 23 to ensure they can take part in a re-run of the city’s mayoral election that has laid bare Turkey’s deep political divisions and raised

Çizer aktivist Gianluca Constantini (@channeldraw), YSK'nın İstanbul seçimlerini iptal etmesinin ardından Ekrem İmamoğlu'nun Beylikdüzü'nde yaptığı konuşmayı çizdi. pic.twitter.com/sXGcjbCRvG

— dokuz8haber (@dokuz8haber) May 8, 2019

We Will Win Again,’ Opposition Vows in Istanbul Election Do-Over

Erdogan defends Istanbul vote redo, critics see power grab