Who arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu?

The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday shocked both Turkish and foreign observers who thought the direct targeting of such a prominent opposition figure would be a step too far even in a country where politicians face regular threats to their liberty.

The 54-year-old, arguably the most powerful and well-known opposition politician in Turkey, posted a video the same day saying “a handful of people who are trying to steal the will of the people, have sent the dear police” and said that hundreds of officers had come to his door.

Imamoglu has faced several charges since becoming mayor in 2019, not least a forced re-run of the mayoral election after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said it had been “stolen”. 

For Imamoglu’s supporters, the constant harassment he has faced is indicative of the threat he poses to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP’s 23 years of unbroken rule in Turkey. Under Imamoglu, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has gone from an ineffectual opposition group appealing only to dedicated supporters to one able to score wins across communities and regions.

Imamoglu was born near the city of Trabzon on the Black Sea coast in 1971. Much was made during the 2019 election campaign of his origins which partly mirror those of Erdogan who, while born in Istanbul, had parents from the same region.

Imamoglu’s father supported the right-wing Motherland Party, whose youth wing Imamoglu briefly participated in, while his mother was a CHP supporter.

The area he grew up in was conservative, religious, and supportive of right-wing parties, including the AKP. Imamoglu attended Quran courses at the age of four and learned to read the Quran in Arabic. While in later life he committed to secularism, Imamoglu's religious upbringing and public profession of faith would later be cited as a factor in his Istanbul mayoral victory.

After graduating from Trabzon High School, Imamoglu travelled to study in Northern Cyprus, initially enrolling in Eastern Mediterranean University’s Civil Engineering programme before transferring to Girne American University’s Faculty of Communication.

After two years, he transferred to Istanbul University’s Faculty of Business Administration in 1990, graduating in 1994. He joined the family construction business and married wife Dilek Imamoglu in 1995.

When did Imamoglu enter politics?

In 2008, Imamoglu joined the CHP. The party of the republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had not had a whiff of real power since the mid-1990s, even though it rallied secular Kemalist voters to become the main opposition.

Though the CHP controlled a chunk of parliamentary seats and mayoralties, primarily in Turkey's southwest, it lost out to a AKP landslide at the 2007 general election. The election of AKP co-founder Abdullah Gul to the presidency alarmed CHP supporters who saw it as a threat to the republic’s constitutional secularism.

But CHP leader Deniz Baykal refused to resign following the losses and became increasingly unpopular, even among the party’s rank-and-file. Commentators said he was too focused on the AKP’s threat to secularism and the republic, at the expense of everyday issues: as such, he was incapable of making inroads with the AKP voters.

Imamoglu, who declared himself a member of the party’s left-leaning social democratic wing, was elected head of the party's youth wing in 2009, and quickly rose through the ranks. In 2014, he was elected mayor of the Istanbul municipality of Beylikduzu, defeating the AKP candidate.

In 2017, he made his first attempt to run for the mayoralty of Istanbul, after the resignation of long-serving AKP incumbent Kadir Topbas.

The office has historic overtones: Erdogan's career largely took off after he was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994. Victory would be seen as a major scalp against the Turkish president.

However, in 2017 it was not to be: Imamoglu lost the city council vote to the AKP’s Mevlut Uysal, who served the remainder of Topbas’ term.

When did Imamoglu become Istanbul mayor?

In April 2019, Imamoglu again ran for the mayoralty and won a small majority. His success this time was attributed to several factors.

First, in his public appearances, Imamoglu exuded a calm charismatic confidence that contrasted with the angry, accusatory public style of Erdogan, who was seen as largely pulling the strings of AKP candidate Binali Yildirim.

Second, Imamoglu’s campaign manager Ates Ilyas Bassoy advocated a strategy of “radical love” that emphasised unity rather than division, bringing together secular, religious, Turks, Alevis and Kurds rather than stoking sectarian fears.

Third, the support Imamoglu gained from smaller conservative and Islamist parties, as well as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) was crucial. This led to unprecedented support for a party that had been seen before as contemptuous of conservatives and repressive of Kurdish rights.