White, who is a professor at the Institute for Turkey Studies at Stockholm University, emphasizes that much is unclear after the arrest last week of Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Maybe he's just testing the waters, she says, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"If I lock up Imamoglu, what happens then?"
The 54-year-old Imamoglu thus governs Turkey's largest city and economic hub, and is expected to be elected as the presidential candidate of the large opposition party CHP at the weekend.
Against the Kurds
The next presidential election is not due to be held until 2028. But maybe Erdogan wants to eliminate the threat in good time, reasons White.
To crush this now instead of closer to the election. If Imamoglu had been crowned as a presidential candidate and then imprisoned, it could have been worse.
The now 71-year-old Erdogan's rule has become increasingly authoritarian over the past 20 years. But the hard-handed measures have primarily been directed against the Kurds and their striving for more self-determination in eastern Turkey.
As soon as their parties have won an election, says the mayor, the government comes and removes them and replaces them with their own people, explains Jenny White.
Steps towards Autocracy
CHP is something else. It is the party that has largely created modern Turkey, and was state-bearing for large parts of the 20th century.
It is Turkey's oldest party, founded by (the father of the nation) Kemal Atatürk, says White.
She describes the coming days as potentially decisive. CHP's election of a presidential candidate will take place at a congress on Sunday.
If they somehow stop CHP's congress, or take over the party with someone they appoint, it would be a very, very big step towards full-scale autocracy.
Because if you in practice take over the opposition – then the elections you hold no longer have any significance.
