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 civil engineering in Northern Cyprus, later transferring to Istanbul University’s Faculty of Business Administration and graduating in 1994.
He joined the family construction business and married wife Dilek 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.
Candidate of main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) for Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu (R) greets his supporters during a rally ahead of the upcoming local elections in Istanbul (AFP)
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">Finally, the campaign took place against a backdrop of an economic crisis that had raged since 2018, shredding the living standards for many in Turkey and chipping away at support for the AKP.
The result was a victory for Imamoglu that saw even staunch AKP families voting for the young mayor, upending previous assumptions about the country’s inflexible voting blocs.
"I directed the CHP's 2019 campaign, but perhaps I had no influence. Maybe the candidates don't matter either,” said Bassoy, speaking to MEE in 2022. “Even if we did nothing, sociological change could be decisive."
Why was Istanbul's mayoral election rerun?
Imamoglu was elected mayor, but that was not the end of it. Just a month later, following a complaint from the AKP of irregularities in the vote, the Supreme Electoral Council (TSK) overturned the results and ordered a re-run.
Campaigning under the slogan “Everything will be fine” on social media and in public, Imamoglu drew support from celebrities both in Turkey and abroad, as the hashtag circulated on social media.
The gambit backfired for the AKP: even those who had not voted for Imamoglu before now transferred their votes, angered by what they saw as interference. The result on 23 June was resounding, as Imamoglu increased his previous majority from 16,000 to 800,000.
Even once staunchly conservative and AKP-leaning districts in the capital including Fatih, Uskudar and Eyup backed the CHP mayor.
Imamoglu’s victory was confirmed and he assumed office.
What did Imamoglu do as mayor?
Imamoglu’s victory was confirmed and he assumed office. But the power of the Istanbul mayor is limited: instead, the government-appointed governor exercises much of the power over Turkey's biggest city.
Imamoglu vowed to pour funds into much-needed infrastructure improvements, including the subway system, but complained that state banks were refusing to cooperate.
The government also took steps to transfer certain areas of control, which had previously been part of the mayor’s brief, to central government, further limiting his influence.
But politically, Imamoglu's position gave him a platform to hold the government to account, focusing on corruption and the state’s crackdowns on students, protesters and trade unionists in Istanbul.
During his tenure, he implemented social welfare programs, transportation reforms, and urban policy initiatives, but complained that restrictions from central government limited his power.
Is Imamoglu seen as a presidential hopeful?
As his popularity grew, many began to talk of Imamoglu as a potential candidate for the presidency. Others anticipated that such hopes would only lead to moves by the AKP to undermine him.
In 2022, Imamoglu was charged with insulting a public official for allegedly calling the TSK “foolish” in 2019 over their decision to cancel that April’s mayoral elections.
Imamoglu denied he had been referring to the TSK in his comments, and was instead speaking about the government. He was sentenced to more than two years in prison and a political ban. Having appealed the ruling - which is still ongoing - he has avoided prison and the ban has yet to take effect.
Read More »
It was seen by many in the CHP as the first salvo in a battle to end Imamoglu's political career.
The May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections were viewed with enthusiasm by many in the Turkish opposition: Erdogan’s popularity had sunk to record lows and opposition factions had largely pulled together to form a coalition, despite disagreements.
But in a move that surprised many, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was selected as the party’s presidential candidate, rather than Imamoglu or even Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas, both of whom polled higher in opinion polls.
Despite widespread optimism and increasing dissatisfaction with the president and the AKP, Erdogan again secured victory.
Following the loss, Imamoglu implicitly criticised Kilicdaroglu and said that there needed to be an overhaul in the CHP. “Let's underline this. Unfortunately, we have lost three elections in a row in nine years. After (the 2023) election, we cannot fall into the negligence of continuing our road by doing the same things,” he said at a meeting in Istanbul the week after the vote.
In a letter penned to a Turkish newspaper, he said the Istanbul Alliance model that had scored him victory in the Istanbul election in 2019 should be the model for future CHP campaigns, and warned that parties in Turkey had become “exclusive” clubs, undemocratic and dominated by their leaders.
“The polarization created by the current regime in Turkey to maintain itself has taken the parties captive. Parties are stuck in imaginary sociologies and identity politics,” he wrote. “It is a must to overcome identity politics by democratising the Law on Political Parties on the one hand and opening channels of democracy within the party on the other.”
What next for Imamoglu?
Imamoglu’s arrest on Wednesday came a day after Istanbul University revoked his degree, a prerequisite for running for president, thereby effectively invalidating any future bid.
Arrested along with around 100 others - including aides and Istanbul municipal mayors - he was charged with extortion, money laundering and irregularities concerning tenders and procurements, which he denied
He was also accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the armed group which fought Turkey for decades before publicly laying its arms down last month.
'What will I do next? I will keep running like a lion. There’s no stepping back, I’ll run even harder'
- Ekrem Imamoglu
What comes next is uncertain - the AKP and their allies suffered arguably their worst election locally in 2024, with the CHP sweeping up many regions of the country, including another win for Imamoglu in Istanbul.
His arrest came just days before the CHP was to hold a primary for its next presidential candidate, which the Istanbul mayor was widely expected to win.
That prospect has been thrown into doubt, but Imamoglu has kept his trademark optimism front and centre, writing on X following the revocation of his degree that he would not be stymied.
“What will I do next? I will keep running like a lion. There’s no stepping back, I’ll run even harder.”
