A Turkish mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, is facing numerous legal proceedings and investigations, Politico reports, as he is a strong rival of the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Imamoğlu, 53, is a popular politician in Turkey and is likely to be named the presidential candidate of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) at a meeting in this month.
Istanbul is crucial for Erdoğan’s government, as the president himself used the mayor’s office of the city as a springboard to secure power, Politico states.
When Imamoğlu was elected as the mayor of Istanbul six years ago, the authorities launched 42 administrative and 51 judicial investigations against him and his office, according to his lawyer, Mehmet Pehlivan, in the Politico article. The lawyer describes the numerous cases as “a broad judicial offensive against the political activities of the mayor”.
Imamoğlu himself says Erdoğan wants to keep him in prison for up to 25 years. “The lawsuits, in which 25 years of imprisonment are demanded against me, carry the signature of the president, not someone else, you can’t fool anyone” the mayor told X.
Politico notes that Imamoğlu has been charged in several cases. One of the accusations is that the buses purchased by the city administration were not suitable for the streets of the island of Büyükada, the largest of the Istanbul’s Prince Islands.
The Turkish authorities accuse the mayor of threatening a high-ranking state prosecutor who is involved in anti-terrorism efforts.
Soli Özel, a scholar at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Vienna, believes the large number of cases against Imamoğlu reflects the growing power of the Istanbul mayor. “Today, Imamoğlu is the greatest threat to Erdoğan’s government or his chances of re-election” the scholar says. The launched cases aim to eliminate this threat, Özel means.
The next presidential elections in Turkey are not until 2028. Erdoğan’s party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), lost the local elections last year. The 71-year-old president has declared he will not run again, but Politico notes that the people in Turkey view his repeated promises to step down with a certain skepticism.
Erdoğan accused the opposition CHP of corruption and the non-governmental media of whitewashing the opposition. “They are busy from morning to night, whitewashing the corruption and theft of the CHP” the Turkish president wrote on X.
It is expected that the CHP will nominate Imamoğlu as the presidential candidate on March 23. Therefore, his appearance in court this week is in the spotlight of the public. At the hearing, evidence about Imamoğlu’s university diploma from 1994 will be presented and whether it is a forgery will be discussed.
Politico notes that the chosen time for the court hearing might not be a coincidence, as the diploma is part of the documents required for a candidate in the presidential elections.
The investigations were launched on February 22 by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, after the Turkish Higher Education Council presented a report on Imamoğlu’s transfer to another university.
Murat Yetkin, the founder of the independent news magazine YetkinReport, shares the view that Erdoğan sees the Istanbul mayor as a threat. “In almost all the cases that are launched, a prison sentence is requested that is long enough to ban the politician from running for an office” Yetkin says.