On March 19, the popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested just as he was about to register to run in Turkey’s next presidential election. At the same time, in a series of coordinated raids, more than 100 individuals were detained, including journalists and business figures. The charges ranged from corruption to alleged links to terrorism.
Despite a government ban on street gatherings, thousands of people began to rally in protest against Imamoglu’s detention, accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of a blatant attempt to remove the man likely to be his main opponent in the next presidential election.
Prosecutors announced that Imamoglu had been arrested for “establishing and managing a criminal organization, taking bribes, extortion, unlawfully recording personal data, and rigging a tender.” In addition to this shopping list of alleged crimes and misdemeanors, Imamoglu also faced allegations of “aiding an armed terrorist organization” – namely, Turkey’s proscribed Kurdish autonomy party, the PKK.
The next day, government media announced that the police were investigating the Imamoglu family’s construction business on a separate suspicion of financial irregularities.
Imamoglu is being harried on another front. A day before his arrest, Istanbul University announced it was revoking Imamoglu’s degree due to alleged irregularities, a measure that, if upheld, would put his ability to run as president in doubt. According to the Turkish constitution, to hold office presidents must have completed higher education.
As mass protests against Imamoglu’s detention erupted across the nation, on March 23 he and four of his aides were, by order of a Turkish court, imprisoned pending trial.
Now Turkey is in turmoil. The Turkish government has been unable to control the popular defiance of its clampdown on street gatherings. Each day tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets in cities and towns across the nation, denouncing Imamoglu’s detention as politically motivated and a further step away from the democratic origins of modern Turkey. As March drew to an end, the protests continued to erupt, day after day.
Last year, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered a major defeat in local and mayoral elections. It seems obvious to many that the current moves are aimed at removing serious contenders ahead of the next presidential election. However, since it is not scheduled until 2028, one might ask why the issue has surfaced so early. There is a very good reason.
Why Turkey’s Erdogan is getting rid of opposition
In the 2017 constitutional referendum which transformed Turkey’s system from a parliamentary to a presidential one – a change championed by Erdogan and his party – a president may serve a maximum of two terms, but there is an exception. If parliament calls for an early election during a president’s second term, that president is allowed to run for a third term.
The year scheduled for the next Turkish presidential election is 2028. Nominally it should mark the end of Erdogan’s second consecutive term, and he would not be eligible to run again. However, should the parliament (which has a three-fifths AKP majority) call for early elections, Erdogan would be able to seek another term.
Imamoglu has accused the government of “weaponizing the judiciary” to stay in power, and his Republican People’s Party called his detention “a coup against the next president.” A message posted on his X account called on judges and prosecutors to “stand up and take action against a handful of your colleagues who are ruining the Turkish judiciary, disgracing us before the whole world, and destroying our reputation…. You cannot and must not remain silent.”
Erdogan’s actions against Imamoglu are part of a broader crackdown on opposition figures in Turkey – a campaign that has intensified in recent months, targeting various political adversaries and dissenting voices.
Since March 19 some 2,000 people have been arrested, among them at least seven journalists, presumably on account of their political opinions. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency recently reported that Turkish police are detaining people for posting messages on social media that allegedly incite unrest. On March 27, BBC news reporter Mark Lowen was arrested, detained, and deported, after covering the public protests.
Erdogan has been on television to accuse the opposition of blowing Imamoglu’s arrest out of all proportion. It will be up to the courts, he said, to determine if the allegations against him are valid, but “they know full well that all of it is true.”
IMAMOGLU HAS been a thorn in Erdogan’s flesh for many years, but back in the 1990s, during Erdogan’s tenure as Istanbul’s mayor, their relationship was cordial. In those days a young Imamoglu hosted Erdogan at his family’s restaurant, on the house.
Imamoglu, always popular with the public, decided to try his luck in the 2019 election for mayor of Istanbul. It was a bold, almost cheeky move because not only had Erdogan virtually started his political career as Istanbul’s mayor, but the post had subsequently been held consistently by members of Erdogan’s party.
Shattering all predictions, Imamoglu won the election, albeit by a very narrow margin – 28,000 votes in a city with more than 10 million voters. The ruling AKP immediately challenged the results, alleging irregularities and fraud.
Under pressure from the AKP, the Supreme Election Council took the unprecedented step of annulling the election and ordered a rerun –a decision heavily criticized both within Turkey and internationally. It backfired spectacularly.
On June 23, 2019, Imamoglu inflicted a stunning defeat on Erdogan and the AKP. He won the rerun election by a much larger margin – some 800,000 votes (54.2% vs 45%). This was widely interpreted as a significant blow to Erdogan’s political dominance. His famous and well-remembered remark came back to haunt him: “Whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey.”
To safeguard his future he is now clearly taking the sort of preemptive steps open to him in a country that retains vestiges of its secular democratic past. Yet he appears more vulnerable than for many a year, both economically and politically.
The Turkish lira has experienced a sharp depreciation, plunging to a record low of 42 to the US dollar, its most substantial decline since July 2023. Simultaneously, the Istanbul stock market has been facing considerable losses. Moreover, recent public opinion surveys show that Erdogan’s approval ratings are in decline – overall, 55% of Turkish adults hold an unfavorable opinion of him.
Yet when it comes to elections, Erdogan has consistently demonstrated the ability to intimidate his opponents and rally his supporters.
The first stage of his winning strategy is clearly in progress.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is: Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com
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