From İstanbul to New York City, With Love (and a Fair Warning)

(Illustration/Isabel Hou)

By Irmak Ersöz

While watching Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech, a familiar excitement washed over me. I remembered being 18, watching the news with my mom trying to hold back her tears. No one expected Ekrem İmamoğlu to win İstanbul’s 2019 mayoral election; defeatism had taken root in the Turkish political consciousness the day Erdoğan abolished parliamentary democracy. Yet, İmamoğlu proved everyone wrong: you could still honorably win an election in Türkiye, even when faced with rigged ballots, predatory rhetoric, and an electorate numb to political pain.

İmamoğlu was a man of the people: he went door to door in Beylikdüzü, his district in İstanbul, to hear families’ concerns on affordability and political degeneration. His countless conversations with schoolchildren, working moms, and tired university students grounded his campaign in anti-corruption and affordability. He didn’t travel with an entourage of bodyguards; only a couple of trusted advisors. He took public transportation everywhere through his mayoral campaign, and he’s still madly in love with his wife.

Doesn’t this sound like someone you know?

Mamdani campaigned on the very promises İmamoğlu spread on İstanbul’s streets seven years ago with an unfading smile. Mamdani’s approach centered human kindness over hyper-polarized rhetoric. By entering every room with an open heart, Mamdani was able to reach pockets of civil society that were disenfranchised and dispirited. Before Mamdani, New York felt close to succumbing to the very defeatism that has pervaded Türkiye—the exact state that fuels polarization and authoritarianism.

Like the United States, polarization has plagued Turkish politics for decades. Voters with the same concerns push each other away by demonizing one another’s religion, lifestyle, income, gender, and race. But somehow, against all odds, İmamoğlu was able to bring both sides together, winning with a record number of votes, just like Mamdani did a couple of weeks ago.

The two stepped into power amid rising authoritarianism. Mamdani has surely spent many sleepless nights pondering the same questions İmamoğlu faced seven years ago: how do you promote transparent, equal, and inclusive policies in the face of a hostile administration?

Over his tenure, İmamoğlu learned to operate within an adversarial system while facing lawsuits and death threats. The government delayed his accession to office, stalled budget approvals, and deliberately understaffed the governor’s office. Under pressure like that, it’s easy for a politician to crumble.

But İmamoğlu never abandoned the heart of his approach. He continued going door to door while remedying İstanbul’s corruption and affordability. By the end of his first year, he helped the city save 700 million Turkish lira (equivalent to ~$140M in 2019) by preventing corrupt transactions. He redirected the funds to food and utility assistance, subsidized daycares, scholarships, women’s empowerment, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like İmamoğlu, Mamdani has a great chance to rewrite New York City’s mayoral script by redirecting funding, appointing people on merit, and delivering on his campaign promises. Free buses for a city like NYC have never been out of reach—İmamoğlu’s large subsidies for free rider cards in İstanbul prove that—but that policy is hampered by a lack of political will and deliberate bureaucratic roadblocks.

By ameliorating bureaucratic inefficiencies while prioritizing his constituents, İmamoğlu turned the mayoral office into the public service institution it should have always been. Mamdani has the same opportunity in his hands—if he can survive the turbulent, lawless politics that have prevailed in the United States.

Perhaps the biggest lesson for Mamdani in İmamoğlu’s story lies not in his campaign trail or policy wins, but in what befell him in March 2025: İmamoğlu was arrested on fabricated charges of financial misconduct and removed from office days before Türkiye’s opposition party was to announce him as their presidential candidate. Erdoğan’s worst nightmare was about to come true, and he had to do something about it. So, in the face of everyone who decried the injustice, Erdoğan jailed İmamoğlu and canceled his university diploma to prevent him from running for president. His arrest triggered the largest protests in Turkey since 2013, repressed violently by armed forces. The Turkish public now awaits İmamoğlu’s fate, while the defeatism İmamoğlu began dismantling rears its head again.

While Trump and Mamdani's initial meeting appeared rosy, the atmosphere is still uneasy. Mamdani’s campaign was marked by defamation by the Republican party and Trump himself expressing his lack of confidence in Mamdani’s ability to “Trump-proof” NYC. The 2019 meeting between Erdoğan and İmamoğlu had similarly left İstanbul confused and slightly hopeful for İmamoğlu’s success. Yet, if Mamdani succeeds in implementing his policies that have MAGA banging their heads against a wall, will Trump sit and wait? Or will there be consequences that we can’t foresee?

I believe if Mamdani had the chance to sit down with İmamoğlu, even if for a brief subway ride, they could commiserate on the ails of campaigning; İmamoğlu could advise Mamdani on navigating the pressure of delivering on his promises amid complicated and inefficient city bureaucracies, and maintaining a smile through it all. But I believe that İmamoğlu would tell Mamdani to watch his back, too. The echoes of polarization, alarm, and anger that İstanbul has carried, the very conditions that brought Mamdani to office, could just as well be the forces that block his windy path to City Hall.