Turkiye arrested three opposition mayors more on Saturday as part of an investigation into alleged graft, said officials of the main opposition, said the Republican Popular Party (CHP), denouncing it as a “political operation.”
The arrests early in the morning were the last movement aimed at elected officials of the CHP when the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exerts increasing pressure on the party, which won a great victory against his justice and development party (AKP) in the local elections of 2024 and is increasing in the surveys.
The arrests were linked to an investigation into the alleged graft that resulted in the elimination in March of the powerful mayor of the opposition of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, whose prison caused mass protests in the worst disturbances of Turkiye street since 2013.
Imamoglu is Erdogan’s biggest political rival and the CHP candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
Earlier this week, the police arrested more than 120 people as part of an investigation into alleged graft in the strength of the opposition of Izmir, the third city of Turkiye.
The last detainees were based in the south of Turkiye: mayor of the southern city, Zeydan Karalar; Mayor of the Tourist City of Antalya, Muhittin Buekk; and the mayor of Adiyaman in the southeast, Abdurrahman Tutdere.
“In a system where the law is folded and balanced according to the policy, where justice is applied to one group and ignores for another, no one should expect us to trust the rule of law or we create in justice,” Mansur Yavas wrote in X, mayor of opposition of the capital of Ankara.
“We will not bow to injustice, illegality or political operations.”
The Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party of the Pro-Kurdos peoples, the third largest in the Parliament of Turkiye, also denounced the arrests in a strongly written statement.
‘Stop chasing the elected officials’
“This persecution of elected officials must stop,” wrote the co -chair of the DEM, Tulay Hatimogullari, in X.
“Not respecting people’s decisions at the polls and not recognizing people’s will is causing deep divisions within society,” he wrote.
“These operations are not a solution, but block the path to a democratic Turk.”
M has been working in recent months in close collaboration with the Erdogan government to facilitate the movements to finish the conflict of decades with the Kurds, facilitating the conversations that in May saw rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that ended their armed struggle in a conflict that cost almost 40,000 lives.
Saturday’s arrests were the last in a large number of legal maneuvers aimed at CHP.
On Monday, an Ankara court began listening to a case against the party that involved accusations of purchase of votes in its 2023 leadership primaries that could end up annulling the election of the popular leader of CHP, Ozgur Ozel, who jumped to the prominence for his role in leading the protests of March.
Anadolu The news agency said that the mayors of Adana and Adiyaman were linked to a case opened by the Public Prosecutor of Estanbul for alleged bidding and bribery rigs.
Police also arrested the deputy mayor of the Buyukcekmece district of Istanbul, Ahmet Sahin as part of the same probe, Birgun He said the news website.
The mayor of Antalya was arrested for a separate investigation launched by the main public prosecutor of the city of the resort on accusations of bribery, and the police also arrests his son, he said.
