A day after Turkey's high election board announced it was going to cancel the results of the Istanbul mayoral elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomes the decision. Other reactions have been critical. CGTN's Michal Bardavid reports.

Turkey is now bracing itself for a potentially historical mayoral election; a re-run of the Istanbul Mayoral election, which is now set for June 23rd. The opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, who won the election called the high election board decision, "treacherous". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the other hand, welcomed the decision and stated that he believed "corruption and irregularities" were involved in the Istanbul elections.

President Erdogan and his AK Party supporters are hoping for a different result in the renewed elections. Some analysts say shifting the votes of smaller parties may be key.

DR. RAGIP KUTAY KARACA ISTANBUL AYDIN UNIVERSITY "There are two main structures, one is the votes of the Felicity Party, which won over one-hundred-thousand votes, the second is the votes of the People's Democratic Party HDP."

However, some parties have already started to take a stand.

DR. RAGIP KUTAY KARACA ISTANBUL AYDIN UNIVERSITY "There are also parties whose candidates have withdrawn to support Imamoglu; the Communist Party of Turkey, Democratic Left Party and an Independent candidate have withdrawn. The total of their votes is around fifty-thousand."

MICHAL BARDAVID ISTANBUL "The winner of the Istanbul Mayoral election CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu won with a very tight margin, with just about 13,000 votes, once again, Istanbul citizens find themselves polarized and many locals have mixed reactions to the decision to annul the elections."

"This is injustice done to Imamoglu; this is a coup. We will tell everyone about it without fear. As a citizen I'm against this, this is interfering with the values of the republic."

"We had doubts regarding the ballots, I believed there were issues and problems with the ballots. Once again, there will be voting and counting will be done correctly without stealing votes and the real party will win."

There were some reactions from Western allies as well, Kati Piri, the European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur stated that the annulment "ends the credibility of democratic transition of power through elections" in Turkey. While the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stated the decision was "not comprehensible". The High Election Board is yet to announce the details of the justification for the annulment of the election. Michal Bardavid, CGTN, Istanbul.