Turkish lira has opened higher against the U.S. dollar after a repeat election for mayor in Istanbul ended months of uncertainty with an opposition win in the country’s largest city.
The dollar traded at 5.717 lira Monday, up nearly 2%, hours after Nation Alliance candidate Ekrem Imamoğlu, of Republican People’s Party (CHP), swept to victory in Istanbul.
The benchmark index of Turkey’s stock exchange Borsa Istanbul (BIST) also rallied 2.15% or 2,017.22 points to open at 96,039.50 points.
On Friday, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index fell 0.14% to close the week at 94,022.28 points with a daily trading volume of 5.84 billion Turkish liras ($1 billion).
Last week, the benchmark index posted a 3.56% hike. At the beginning of this year, the BIST 100 hovered around 89,000 points.
Imamoğlu won the mayoral ballot in March, but a repeat was ordered by the country’s election commission, citing procedural irregularities.
As Turkey now enters 4.5 years ahead without elections, the government plans to focus economic and security problems while pushing through structural reforms
