Turkish Government Accused of Using Courts To Block Istanbul Mayor From Presidential Run

Ekrem Imamoğlu, a member of the main opposition party, is a top contender to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next presidential election

The Turkish government is using criminal charges to try to prevent Istanbul’s mayor, a top opposition figure, from becoming the head of his party or making a run for president of the country, the mayor’s lawyer told The Media Line.

Ekrem Imamoğlu, a member of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), gave the opposition its greatest victory in decades when he won the 2019 Istanbul mayoral race. He is now facing up to seven years’ imprisonment on new charges accusing him of fraud over government tenders given out while he was mayor of the Istanbul district of Beylikdüzü from 2014 to 2019. Last year, he was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for “insulting” election officials, a verdict that is under appeal.

Imamoğlu has denied all the charges against him.

The plan is to try to ban his political road

Imamoğlu’s lawyer, Gökhan Günaydın, told The Media Line that the charges are a “political ploy” and the government wants to stop Imamoğlu from becoming the head of the main opposition party or running for the presidency of the country.

“The plan is to try to ban his political road,” Günaydın said after appearing in court yesterday to represent Imamoğlu against the new charges.

The communications office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was asked for comment by The Media Line but did not immediately respond.

Günaydın said that Imamoğlu was not involved in the tenders upon which the charges are based.

If found guilty of the new charges, or if the previous conviction against him is upheld, Imamoğlu could be forced to leave office due to a ban on his serving in politics imposed by the judge in last year’s trial.

Günaydın said that there would be several appeals before such a ban would be applied and that both supporters of the CHP and others who considered the process unfair would put up a “struggle” against such a decision.

“The results of the last Istanbul election showed that this will happen,” he said.

After Imamoğlu won a slim victory against Erdoğan’s ally in the mayoral race, the election board canceled the results and said another vote had to be held, which Imamoğlu ended up winning in a landslide.

Critics have accused the government of interfering politically with the country’s courts, but the government insists the judiciary is independent.

Analysts say that Erdoğan will clamp down harder on dissent after his win last month in elections that had been expected to be the toughest challenge to his power, with several pre-election polls showing that the opposition candidate was tied or ahead of him.

On Thursday, a co-founder of an opposition party headed by Erdoğan’s former finance minister was sentenced to five years in prison over accusations that he shared confidential information.

The charges come ahead of local elections in which people will vote for mayors across the country.

Aydın Sezer, an Ankara-based foreign policy analyst, said that Erdoğan’s top goals would be to win back Istanbul and Ankara, both of which were taken by the opposition for the first time in decades during the 2019 local elections.

“For these two cities, Erdoğan is reportedly considering names that are important and can get votes from all segments of society. However, he is aware that the negative impact of new economic policies on the population will play a large role in the elections,” Sezer wrote to The Media Line.

Turkey’s struggling economy, with inflation reported at nearly 40% last month, is considered one of the top reasons Erdoğan’s party lost the cities in the last local elections and why he was forced into a second round in the May presidential election to maintain his power.

Istanbul, the country’s largest city and economic engine, is where the Turkish president grew up in a working-class neighborhood and where he started his political career as its mayor.

His party’s loss of the mayoral election in the city is considered his greatest political defeat since coming to power.

The CHP is currently embroiled in internal party politics, with the failed presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu facing calls to step down as head of the party and Imamoğlu demanding a complete change in the party.

I think he’s going to try to disrupt the opposition, try to prevent them from coming back from their defeat this year

Ryan Bohl, a Middle East analyst for the risk intelligence company RANE, told The Media Line that Erdoğan is trying to prevent opposition candidates from winning local elections because they could be seen as challengers in the next presidential election.

“I think he’s going to try to disrupt the opposition, try to prevent them from coming back from their defeat this year,” Bohl said.

He said that if the opposition won the local elections again in Istanbul and Ankara, this would create hope that they could be successful in the 2028 presidential election. However, if they lost, this would dampen their prospects further after their defeat in May.

“If they lose those seats, it will put the opposition morale into an even deeper, lower place and it could end up in them dissolving … and the political party starting to fray and to fall apart,” Bohl said.

“If they achieve victories then … the CHP will be able to stave that off, rally the troops, and try to prepare the counterattack for 2028.”