It was a dream moment for Ekrem Imamoglu. As his campaign bus passed through Istanbul last month, a 13-year-old boy ran up.
“Older brother!” he shouted in Turkish. “Her sey cok guzel olacak!” – everything will be all right.
“Exactly, bravo!” answered the smiling mayoral candidate for Turkey's opposition, turning to his team. His slogan was settled.
A nation that has been through so much in the past few years – terror attacks, an attempted coup, the spill-over of the Syrian war, mass waves of migration – feels increasingly polarised, for and against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The opposition has been crying out for optimism. They found it in that slogan, and in their candidate.
The rise of a challenger to Turkey's president
Ekrem Imamoglu, a previously little-known 49-year-old mayor of the Istanbul district of Beylikduzu, has seized on the hope his supporters crave, channelling it into a relentlessly positive message as he fights to become mayor of Istanbul, for the second time.
