Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu had anticipated to transform Turkey’s opposition presidential nominee on March 23, 2025; as an alternative, he misplaced his freedom and school stage.
On March 18, the baby-kisser – observed as a formidable rival to long-ruling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – noticed his bachelor’s stage revoked via Istanbul College. An afternoon later, Imamoglu was once arrested at the side of team of workers participants and a district mayor of Istanbul.
As a professional on Turkish politics, I consider the timing of those two measures counsel that Erdogan is truly fearful that Imamoglu poses a significant risk to his 22-year-long rule.
The 100-plus folks rounded up within the police sweep in Istanbul have been all from Turkey’s primary opposition birthday celebration, the Republican Other folks’s Birthday celebration, or RPP, which was once established via Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The costs in opposition to them come with corruption, forming a felony group and helping the PKK, a Kurdish workforce designated via Turkey as a terrorist workforce, thru collaboration with the pro-Kurdish political birthday celebration.
What makes that accusation extra perplexing is that it comes at a time when the federal government is selling Abdullah Ocalan, the chief of the PKK, as a peacemaker who will dissolve the group. The about-face on Ocalan, who for the previous 26 years has been in a Turkish jail, is observed via political observers as an effort via Erdogan to courtroom Kurdish fortify for a constitutional modification that will take away the presidential time period prohibit that in a different way prevents him from operating once more.
President for existence?
The Turkish Charter limits presidents to 2 five-year phrases. Erdogan has already been elected thrice, however justified his 3rd run via arguing that his first time period happened sooner than the 2017 constitutional amendments that established the present device. If the time period prohibit is lifted, he might be elected a fourth time – and doubtlessly past.
Is it time for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to go away the level?
Sean Gallup/Getty Pictures
The primary impediment to Erdogan’s plans is Imamoglu, who seems to be considerably extra standard than the long-serving president.
The revocation of Imamoglu’s 31-year-old stage was once extensively observed as an try to disqualify him from the presidential election and an excuse to cancel the RPP number one on March 23. In step with Turkey’s Charter, a presidential candidate should be a school graduate.
The costs seem to have been introduced in opposition to Imamoglu with an much more formidable purpose in thoughts: to bar him from protecting any public administrative center, together with the mayorship. This is able to yield a triple victory for Erdogan – he would be capable of reclaim Istanbul’s mayoralty via appointing a hand-picked civil servant, push thru constitutional adjustments via intimidating parliamentarians, and do away with his most powerful rival from any long run presidential race.
The tried energy snatch and time period extensions may just shift Turkey’s political device from a fallacious democracy to an “elected dictatorship” corresponding to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
That’s why RPP chief Ozgur Ozel described the measures in opposition to Imamoglu as “a coup d’état against the people’s right to elect their leader.”
Not more loose elections?
Erdogan is a grasp of electioneering in relation to selling populist insurance policies, and manipulating the media and electoral practices to paintings in opposition to opposition events.
Dealing with susceptible opponents, whether or not accidentally or thru his manipulations, has been key to Erdogan’s electoral luck over the last 20 years. Beneath the management of its former chief, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition RPP has suffered successive defeats in presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections in opposition to Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Construction Birthday celebration.
Erdogan first confronted a significant problem to this electoral formulation within the 2023 presidential election, when polls confirmed that Imamoglu, not like Kilicdaroglu, was once extra standard than Erdogan.
In an obvious bid via Erdogan to neutralize the risk 5 months sooner than the election, a courtroom sentenced Imamoglu to 2½ years in jail for insulting public officers after he known as Turkey’s Superb Election Council “fools.” The ruling is now beneath attraction; if upheld, it will additionally bar him from protecting public administrative center.
Somewhat than backing Imamoglu, Kilicdaroglu insisted on operating in opposition to Erdogan himself in 2023. This was once a departure from the former two presidential elections, by which the RPP chief had sponsored different applicants. Regardless, Kilicdaroglu misplaced.
After defeat, Kilicdaroglu was once got rid of from RPP management, and the brand new birthday celebration head backs Imamoglu to run as a presidential candidate. Now, Imamoglu is operating with a reputation that surpasses Erdogan’s, making him probably the most bold opposition candidate in 20 years.
Erdogan’s declining reputation
All through his lengthy rule, Erdogan has pursued a two-part solution to take care of his grip on energy: win elections to say legitimacy whilst concurrently consolidate regulate thru authoritarian way, corresponding to imprisoning newshounds and branding opposition figures as “terrorists.”
Alternatively, Turkey’s 2024 municipal elections marked a shift in home politics. For the primary time since 2002, Erdogan’s JDP fell to 2nd position, whilst the opposition RPP emerged because the main birthday celebration via vote percentage, securing main victories in each Istanbul – the place Imamoglu was once reelected – and Ankara, Turkey’s capital, the place RPP’s Mansur Yavas gained every other time period.
A significant component within the declining acclaim for Erdogan’s birthday celebration – and the chief for my part – is the rustic’s ongoing financial disaster. Since 2022, Turkey’s annual inflation fee has hovered round 50%, eroding buying energy and triggering a significant mind drain as professional Turkish electorate search higher alternatives somewhere else.
The disaster is extensively blamed on Erdogan’s financial insurance policies, in particular his insistence on decreasing rates of interest to battle inflation – contradicting standard financial knowledge.
In spite of a contemporary coverage reversal, Turkey’s forex continues to depreciate. 5 years in the past, one U.S. greenback was once price 5 Turkish lira; as of late, it has surged to 40 lira.
Why is Imamoglu focused?
Incarceration isn’t an unheard-of tactic in Turkey to silence opposition figures. Selahattin Demirtas, the previous chief of the pro-Kurdish Other folks’s Democratic Birthday celebration, has been at the back of bars for over 8 years on terrorism fees; and Umit Ozdag, the chief of the far-right Victory Birthday celebration, has been in jail for 2 months for insulting Erdogan and inciting hatred.
Each males have been irritants to Erdogan and may just fire up hassle, however neither was once an actual risk to Erdogan’s energy.
What makes Imamoglu distinctive is that he possesses vast attraction throughout other voter blocs. He can draw in the Kurdish vote whilst keeping up sturdy ties with nationalist politicians together with his aura and public talking.
Supporters of Ekrem Imamoglu wave a poster flag of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as they show on March 19, 2025.
Kemal Aslan/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Extra importantly, he can attraction to each secularist and Islamic electorate. He draws fortify from a pressure of Turkish society that clings to the secular imaginative and prescient laid out via Ataturk. However on the identical time, he is in a position to make overtures to non secular electorate, corresponding to via publicly reciting verses of the Quran.
This talent to unite various constituencies helped Imamoglu defeat Erdogan’s birthday celebration in Istanbul two times in 2019 – after the primary defeat, Erdogan refused to just accept the end result and the Superb Election Council annulled the election.
Imamoglu’s reelection as mayor in 2024 solidified his popularity because the main baby-kisser who may just defeat Erdogan on the poll field.
The newest arrest of the preferred baby-kisser has sparked protests in more than one towns, an extraordinary prevalence in Turkey over the last decade. It additionally coincided with a 7% drop within the Turkish inventory marketplace, as traders apparently noticed it as a sign of political instability.
However as occasions over contemporary days have proven, standard fortify by myself will not be sufficient for Imamoglu to succeed in the presidency – he additionally should face down judicial and different efforts to stay him off the poll.
