Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and chief rival for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2028 election, was arrested on Wednesday in a move denounced by opposition leaders as a “coup against the next president.”
Imamoglu was just days away from formally receiving his party’s nomination for the presidency.
Imamoglu, 54, was among roughly a hundred people targeted by arrest warrants on Wednesday for corruption, bribery, racketeering, and aiding a known terrorist group — specifically the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group that Erdogan’s government regards as the greatest security threat to Turkey.
The PKK declared a ceasefire in early March at the urging of its jailed co-founder Abdullah Ocalan, after more than 40 years of fighting the Turkish government. Erdogan and his administration sometimes denounce Imamoglu’s Kurd-friendly and increasingly popular Republican People’s Party (CHP) as a mouthpiece for the PKK radicals.
The CHP has become the leading opposition party in Turkey. The party was poised to bestow its presidential nomination this Sunday upon Imamoglu, who was the only candidate in the running.
Imamoglu won re-election as Istanbul’s mayor in March 2024, dealing a political blow to Erdogan and his AKP party. Imamoglu ran as a political outsider in 2019, and stunned Turkish politics by winning the prestigious office of Istanbul mayor after a quarter-century of AKP rule. Erdogan was one of the AKP mayors of Istanbul before he became president.
AKP managed to get Imamoglu’s 2019 election annulled in court just 18 days after he won by claiming there were irregularities in the vote. The election was repeated, and Imamoglu won again — by an even wider margin.
Many of Imamoglu’s supporters said their vote for the mayor in 2024 was intended as a protest against Erdogan’s 22 years of rule and the deterioration of Turkey’s economy under his policies. Party leaders and supporters angrily denounced Imamoglu’s arrest in an early-morning raid as a transparently political maneuver designed to keep Erdogan in power.
On Tuesday, Istanbul University annulled Imamoglu’s degree because he supposedly enrolled and graduated with forged documents in the 1990s. Imamoglu dismissed the allegations as another absurd political trick, while his legal team argued that the Istanbul University board of directors had no authority to annul his diploma.
CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel said the nullification of Imamoglu’s diploma was a “dark smear” against the Istanbul mayor, and his arrest on Wednesday was a “coup against the next president.”
“We are facing great tyranny, but I want you to know that I will not be discouraged,” Imamoglu said in a video message posted to social media as he was taken into custody.
“Linking investigations and cases initiated by the judiciary to our President is, at best, presumptuous and inappropriate,” retorted Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc, who insisted the arrest of Imamoglu was not a political maneuver.
Erdogan took the precaution of banning all public gatherings and protests for four days, restricting access to social media, and shutting down some roads around Istanbul. Angry protesters still gathered outside police headquarters in Istanbul on Wednesday, while security forces rolled in with riot control trucks and water cannons.
“Imamoglu, you’re not alone!” and “Government, resign!” the protesters yelled.
“In the past, it was the soldiers who carried out coups. Today it’s the politicians. Foreign investors are not going to invest in Turkey any more. Who would want to invest in a country without justice or rule of law?” one Istanbul resident wondered.
The Turkish stock market and currency tumbled after Imamoglu’s arrest, with the lira hitting a record low of 40.96 to the U.S. dollar.
“Recent opinion polls have consistently showed that Imamoglu would defeat Erdogan in a presidential election. Imamoglu’s detention comes amid increased uncertainty, a heightened climate of fear in Turkey, and will reinforce a growing sensation among Erdogan’s critics and opponents that no one is safe,” said a report on Wednesday from consulting firm Teneo Intelligence.
“Erdogan is emboldened by Turkey’s growing importance for European security and U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office to neutralize his domestic opponents,” the report added.
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