Turkish police have detained the strongest rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a move that experts say is aimed at removing all possible contenders ahead of the next presidential election and further stretching his rule.
The Istanbul Mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was detained as part of corruption and terror investigations in a move the opposition condemned as politically motivated. Some 100 others connected to the mayor were also detained, including elected Istanbul district mayors Resul Emrah Sahan and Murat Calik.
The wave of arrests comes after a months-long crackdown on the opposition in Turkey. In November, Human Rights Watch lambasted Erdogan for removing several elected opposition mayors and replacing them with government-appointed ones.
Murat Somer, politics professor at Ozyegin University in Istanbul, said the Istanbul mayor’s detention was part of a political transformation Turkey is undergoing.
Whether the opposition will be able to survive this effort is yet to be seen.
Imamoglu said that he would not back down.
“We are up against huge bullying,” the two-time mayor said in a video filmed from his walk-in closet shortly before his arrest. “But I will not back down. I love you all. I entrust myself to the people. I will be standing tall,” he said in the video that was posted Wednesday on X.
In a separate message, Imamoglu’s wife Dilek said that “those who do not want to lose in the next ballot box have made this move,” referring to Erdogan and his camp.
‘Too much of a threat’
Imamoglu, one of Turkey’s most popular political figures, was the major threat to Erdogan.
Erdogan extended his rule into a third decade after winning a knife-edge presidential election in 2023, securing a second term. His party did not, however, secure the key city of Istanbul, where he was mayor before becoming president, which remains in the hands of his rival Imamoglu and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
After winning a second term, Erdogan was bent on taking back the city in March 2024 municipal elections, which saw Imamoglu again emerge victorious by 51.14% of the vote, beating Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) candidate. He had been elected Istanbul mayor in 2019.
Both leaders hail from the Black Sea coast, and just as Erdogan used his Istanbul mayorship in the 1990s to convince voters that he can run Turkey well, “Imamoglu has created the same brand,” he said. “This was too much a threat for Erdogan and he decided to nip it in the bud.”
Imamoglu is on a trajectory to one day lead the country. Some polls had said that if he ran for president against Erdogan, Imamoglu would secure more votes.
“Imamoglu is extremely popular,” Somer said adding that Imamoglu has been particularly skilled at drawing support, even from traditionally pro-Erdogan camps.
“This is of course extremely threatening to Erdogan,” Somer said.
His arrest came just days before the CHP was scheduled to hold a primary election, where Imamoglu was expected to be chosen as its presidential candidate for the next round of presidential polls.
It also comes after Istanbul University said on Tuesday it had annulled Imamoglu’s degree over irregularities. Candidates must hold a university degree to run for president in Turkey.
In response to his arrest, the CHP called for protests by the party’s headquarters and provincial offices across the country. The CHP’s leader, Ozgur Ozel, called Imamoglu’s detention “a coup attempt against our next president.”
Meanwhile, Erdogan’s allies have defended the crackdown.
Erdogan’s ally and leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, rejected calling Imamoglu’s detention a coup, adding that calling to the streets in protest of his arrest is “political corruption that has gone mad and lost its level of reason and morality.”
Bahceli also insisted that the Turkish judiciary is “independent, impartial and objective.”
A third presidential term?
Experts say that Erdogan is likely trying to extend his rule into a third term.
According to the constitution presidents are only allowed to run for two terms. To circumvent this rule, Erdogan will have to either amend the constitution or call early elections.
To change the constitution, Erdogan will need the support of the CHP, the second largest party in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly after Erdogan’s AK Party, boasting more than 130 members of parliament. The AK Party has more than 270 seats. A constitutional amendment requires a vote of two-thirds majority in parliament.
Erdogan previously amended the constitution in a 2017 referendum that transformed Turkey’s parliamentary system into a powerful executive presidency, granting Erdogan sweeping powers.
The president may also call early elections, which would grant him at least another five years of rule, as his second term would be incomplete. In order to actually run for president in early elections, parliament will have to make the call, according to Article 116 of the constitution.
But any election that includes the opposition with Imamoglu as its head risks seeing Erdogan’s defeated, experts say.
“If they allow the opposition to fully participate in the elections, they will lose. They realize that,” Somer said, adding that Erdogan is likely seeking to eliminate the opposition before calling early elections and changing the constitution, which Somer said Erdogan has been preparing for by co-opting politicians to back the idea.
Captagay said that Erdogan may, however, miscalculate, as “arresting your top opponent never works out well.”
Erdogan was himself arrested in 1999 by the then-secular regime. He later went on to win massive popularity.
“Imamoglu’s arrest might increase sympathies for him and can frame him as a nationally known political hero, just as Erdogan’s arrest did for him in 1999,” Captagay said, adding that Erdogan may have inadvertently bolstered his political nemesis.