İstanbul Mayor Imamoğlu was detained: “We are facing a grand tyranny”

“We are facing a grand tyranny. But I will not give up” said İstanbul Metropolitan Mayor İmamoğlu in a video he recorded while dressing, minutes before he was taken into custody by the police. He is  President Erdoğan’s potential rival in the next Turkish elections. (Photo: screenshot)

İstanbul’s opposition CHP member Metropolitan Mayor (IBB) Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained from his home on the morning of March 19. At 06:15 in the morning, the police arrived with a force of 20 vehicles at his official residence in Rumelihisarı district. They detained İmamoğlu within the framework of the investigation opened by the Istanbul Chief Republic Prosecutor’s Office. In the video recording he took while getting dressed, İmamoğlu said, “We are facing a grand tyranny. But I want you to know that I will not give up. I will continue to fight against that person and his mind that uses this whole process as an apparatus.”
İmamoğlu, considered as the potential rival of President Tayyip Erdoğan in the next Turkish elections is referring to him as “that person” for some time to avoid new insult lawsuits.
Prosecutor’s Office said that around 100 people were detained along with İmamoğlu in a simultaneous operation. Among those, there are two district mayors (both CHP), IBB Secretary General and his deputy, the head of the İstanbul Planning Agency, İmamoğlu’s chief advisor and Campaign Director, and the head of the Istanbul Reform Institute. Journalist İsmail Saymaz was reportedly detained at the same time but in connection with the Gezi trial.

Extraordinary bans in Istanbul

Istanbul Governorate announced that all meetings, demonstrations, rallies, and collective press statements are banned in the city between March 19-23 due to the detention operation. Bans also cover the March 21 Nevruz Bayram.
Metro stations in the city’s central areas such as Taksim, Aksaray, and Fatih were closed.
The governor’s office justified its decision as “preventing provocative actions that may occur”. This shows that the government is prepared to suppress any possible mass reaction to the detention of İmamoğlu and other mayors by not excluding the use of force.

CHP: a coup attempt

İmamoğlu said over the weekend that there was an “illegitimate campaign” to prevent him from being a candidate against Erdoğan in the next elections, recalling that he has won İstanbul elections twice in 2019 and 2024 against Erdoğan’s ruling AKP. Yesterday on March 18 İstanbul University Board cancelled İmamoğlu’s diploma during an extraordinary meeting upon the request of the Prosecutor’s Office. According to the Turkish Constitution Imamoğlu and CHP said they would object to the decision in the court.
“We are facing a coup attempt against our next president,” CHP leader Özgür Özel said on his X account; saying that the move was to prevent İmamoğlu from being a candidate against President Erdoğan in the next elections.
Özel said:
• “Replacing the will of the people or using force to prevent it is a coup. We are facing a coup attempt against our next president. We will not surrender. In the end, what the nation says will happen and Türkiye will win.”
During his recent tour of European capitals, Özel had told European Union politicians and officials that Turkish main opposition CHP’s presidential candidate would be İmamoğlu.

Accusations against İmamoğlu

İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office released two statements about the subject earlier this morning.
The first one named the Metropolitan Mayor the “head of a criminal organization for profit” and claimed he and his close associates rigged municipality tenders by abusing their offices. (There are business people taken into custody during the operation.)
The second one was accusing him of “helping and cooperating with the terrorist PKK/KCK” in the 2024 elections through the “city consensus” project which allowed Kurdish politicians to have seats in the CHP municipality assemblies. This is particularly interesting since the government is currently in dialogue with the PKK, trying to convince them to lay down arms and abolish itself to adopt parliamentary democracy.
The second one is also interesting because is a mayor is arrested by the court because of terrorism charges, the government can appoint a trustee to run the municipality. For other charges, the municipal assembly can elect a member from within as acting mayor, even if the mayor is arrested.

Speculations about the operation

The March 19 operation is likely to serve two proposes regardless of the court decisions.
One of them is obvious: preventing İmamoğlu from running against Erdoğan. Actually, Erdoğan cannot run for Presidency again according to the Constitution. But due to a loophole planted in the Constitution, if the Parliament decides for an early election, then the President’s term is considered as unserved so he can be a candidate.
Currently number of seats of AKP and its ally MHP in the Parliament is short of the two-thirds majority, that is 360. But AKP hopes that thanks to the dialogue with the PKK, the Kurdish problem-focused DEM Party could support Erdoğan.
The other one is to seize the resources of İstanbul, including direct outreach to people from the hands of the main opposition CHP as a preparation for the next elections. That includes resuming the transfer of the municipality support to religious societies which have some influence on the AKP vote base.