The day had not dawned when the raid began at the mayor's home, according to information from his wife to the TV channel Now. Riot police and dozens of security vehicles were seen outside the residence, and shortly thereafter came reports that Imamoglu had been arrested.
Just a few hours earlier, the mayor had spoken to supporters via a video recording on social media. Then, his university degree had suddenly been declared invalid, which means he is formally disqualified from running in a future presidential election.
"We are facing great tyranny, but I want you to know that I will not be intimidated", he said according to AP.
Hot situation
Imamoglu's name is said to appear in at least three investigations related to fraud, bribery, terrorism, and money laundering, writes CNN Turk, citing Istanbul's prosecutor's office.
Arrest warrants have been issued for over a hundred people, reports state media. Among those arrested is Imamoglu's advisor Murat Ongun.
The arrests are being criticized as political and part of the regime's crackdown on the opposition, writes CNN. At the same time as the raid was carried out, traffic was blocked on several locations around the metropolis, and demonstrations have been banned for four days, reports AP. It is seen as a signal that President Erdogan's regime understands that the arrest will trigger popular outrage.
Hot situation
Ekrem Imamoglu is seen as a likely challenger to Erdogan in the next presidential election. It is to be held no later than 2028, but it has been deemed likely to be brought forward.
The arrest comes regardless in a hot situation within Turkish politics. Erdogan's party AKP has suffered losses in local elections in March, and more and more voices are now calling for an early presidential election. This weekend, Imamoglu's CHP, the largest opposition party, is to hold primaries to select its presidential candidate.
CHP is the old party of the founding father Atatürk and is often described as secular, social democratic, and to some extent nationalist. Imamoglu is held as a big future name within CHP, but has been the subject of several legal cases. In January, his supporters clashed with police when the mayor was questioned in a court case regarding allegedly insulting statements about prosecutors. Imamoglu himself dismissed the allegations as a "plot".
The now 54-year-old Imamoglu was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, which was then seen as a hard blow to the authoritarian president's power base. Erdogan's party AKP claimed that there had been irregularities in the election, whereupon it was re-run. Ekrem Imamoglu won again.
Facts: Turkey and its politics
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The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed in 1923 with the founding father Kemal Atatürk as president. It was to be a modern national state with universal suffrage to a parliament, but until the 1950 election, only one party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), was allowed.
The military has intervened in politics several times, both deposing and appointing leaders. Throughout the 1990s, the country was ruled by short-lived coalition governments.
In 2001, the current president and former Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan founded the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). It has ruled the country since 2002. Erdogan was prime minister between 2003 and 2014, when he took over the presidency from Abdullah Gül.
Democracy has gradually been dismantled as the president has taken control of, or shut down, regime-critical media. With a constitutional amendment in 2017 and further legislative changes and decrees after the re-election in 2018, Erdogan has reshaped the state apparatus in a way that essentially means that parliamentarism has been replaced by a presidential system. At the same time, Erdogan has given Islam an increasingly prominent place in politics.
Sources: UI and others
