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Turkish authorities have detained five mayors and issued arrest warrants for dozens of other officials in a widening crackdown centred on Istanbul’s popular mayor who was jailed after challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the country’s top office.
Police on Saturday raided municipal offices and arrested three district mayors in Istanbul, as well as a former lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the state news agency Anadolu said. Two CHP mayors in the southern province of Adana were also detained. Anadolu said that in total 30 people were seized.
Erdoğan has accused the Istanbul municipality of operating a “criminal organisation” after its mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was charged with corruption and terrorism in March. İmamoğlu denies the allegations, saying Erdoğan is “weaponising the judiciary” to quash challenges to his 22-year rule.
İmamoğlu’s arrest sparked the largest anti-government protests in more than a decade, with the mayor’s supporters accusing Erdoğan of authoritarianism. Opinion polls show the 53-year-old İmamoğlu would beat Erdoğan in a contest for the presidency as discontent with the government’s management of the economy mounts.
The arrest unnerved investors, forcing the central bank to spend an estimated $50bn of its reserves to steady the lira, which is still trading at historic lows. The country’s benchmark stock index has lost 17 per cent of its value since İmamoğlu was jailed.
The turmoil forced the central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to 46 per cent to tame consumer price inflation which is running at an annual rate of 38 per cent. The combination of high interest rates and inflation has throttled Turkey’s $1.3tn economy, with data released on Friday showing it expanded at 2 per cent in the first quarter, below analysts’ forecasts.
Criticism of the crackdown from Turkey’s western allies has been largely muted. However Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, visited İmamoğlu in prison on Friday. He posted a message on X, calling on Turkey to respect the rule of law and free İmamoğlu.
Hundreds of Istanbul municipal officials and other CHP figures have been jailed in successive operations since March. The government has said the arrests were not politically motivated and showed that no one was above the law.
CHP chair Özgür Özel has called an emergency meeting of the party’s Istanbul lawmakers and local officials to discuss how to respond to the latest arrests, the party said.
