A court formally arrested the mayor of Istanbul and the key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday and ordered imprisoned waiting for the result of a trial for corruption charges.
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a raid at his residence earlier this week, which caused the greatest wave of street demonstrations in Türkiye in more than a decade. He also deepened concerns about democracy and the rule of law in Türkiye.
Its imprisonment is widely considered as a political movement to eliminate an important contender of the next presidential race, currently scheduled for 2028.
Government officials reject accusations that legal actions against opposition figures have political motivation and insist that Türkiye’s courts operate independently.
The formal arrest occurred when more than 1.5 million members of the Republican Popular Party of the opposition, or CHP, began to celebrate a primary presidential election to support Imamoglu as its presidential candidate. With Imamoglu as the only candidate, the primary, announced last month, was largely a symbolic support of support.
The party has also established symbolic urns throughout the country, called “Solidarity Boxes”, to allow people who are not members of the party to express their support for the mayor.
“Honestly, we are embarrassed in the name of our legal system,” the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, a member of the Imamoglu Chp, the journalists, told journalists after the vote, criticizing the lack of confidentiality in the procedures.
“We learned from television experts about the accusations that even lawyers had no access, showing how politically motivated this test has been,” he said.
The Council of Europe, an agency throughout Europe that focuses on promoting human rights and democracy criticized the decision to imprison the mayor.
“We deplore the decision to place the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamogl in detention and demand his immediate release,” said Marc Cools, who directs the Congress of Local Authorities of the Group.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkey Research Program of the Institute of Policy of the Near East of Washington and author of a biography of Erdogan, said with the arrest of Imamoglu, Erdogan was taking an extreme measure against his key opponent.
“Erdogan is determined to do whatever is necessary to end the Imamoglu career,” he said. “(Imamoglu) expires Erdogan in each imaginable presidential survey.”
Cagaptay said that the international environment, where the European Union seems interested in maintaining Turkey’s favor in the midst of Russian security threats, and the United States does not care about the internal affairs of other countries, allows Erdogan to proceed without fear of international scrutiny.
The EU is fulfilled and the United States faces inward, ”said Cagaptay.
Before his arrest, Imamoglu had already faced multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political prohibition. He was also appealing a 2022 sentence for insulting the members of the Supreme Electoral Council of Türkiye.
At the beginning of the week, a university annulled its diploma, citing alleged irregularities in its transfer of a private university in northern Cyprus about 30 years ago. The decision effectively prevents it from running for president, since the position requires candidates to be university graduates. Imamoglu had promised to challenge the decision.
Imamoglu was elected mayor of the largest city in Turkey in March 2019, in a great blow to Erdogan and the President’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Estabul for a quarter of a century. Erdogan’s party pressed to cancel the results of the municipal elections in the city of 16 million, claiming irregularities.
The challenge resulted in a repetition of the elections a few months later, which Imamogl also won.
The mayor retained his position after the local elections last year, during which the CHP obtained significant profits against Erdogan’s governing party.
