Despite his legal troubles, Imamoglu has vowed to keep fighting. “I will not give up,” he said in a video message on X. Imamoglu’s rise in politics has drawn parallels with Erdogan’s trajectory, as both have led Istanbul and encountered legal hurdles that threatened their political futures.
Turkey arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday on charges including corruption and aiding a terrorist group, a move his opposition party has criticized as a “coup attempt against the incoming president.” As a leading figure in the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Imamoglu has long been seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s most formidable rival. His appeal beyond his party’s traditional, secular base has thrust him deeper into the national spotlight, making him a competitive opponent that the CHP had been expected to nominate as its presidential candidate in the upcoming election. Wednesday’s arrest, along with charges of running a criminal organization, bribery and bid rigging, escalates a political showdown that could shape Turkey’s future.
Despite his legal troubles, Imamoglu has vowed to keep fighting. “I will not give up,” he said in a video message on X.
Imamoglu’s rise to power has drawn parallels with Erdogan’s, as both have ruled Istanbul, and have faced legal hurdles that have threatened their political futures. Born in 1971 in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, Imamoglu studied business administration at Istanbul University before joining his family’s construction business. He joined the CHP in 2008 and became mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikduzu district in 2014. In 2019, he handed Erdogan’s ruling AK Party (AKP) its biggest defeat in two decades, winning the Istanbul mayoral race not once, but twice.
A court had overturned his initial victory, allowing him to win a repeat election by an even wider margin. And in 2024, he secured reelection despite a fractured opposition alliance.
Imamoglu has described his political struggles as a fight for democracy. “This is more than a mayoral election,” he said last year. Imamoglu has faced legal challenges throughout his career, being sentenced in 2022 to two and a half years in prison for insulting public officials, although an appeals court has yet to rule on the matter. In another case last year, he was charged with rigging tenders. His supporters see the charges as politically motivated attempts to damage him, a claim Erdogan and the AKP deny. The latest charges are the most serious. The Istanbul prosecutor’s office has said 100 people, including journalists and businessmen, are suspected of involvement in corrupt municipal tenders.
In another investigation, Imamoglu and six others are accused of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Adding to the pressure, Istanbul University revoked Imamoglu’s degree this week. If the ruling is upheld by a court, it could block him from running in the 2028 presidential election. However, if Erdogan intends to run again, the election could be held earlier, analysts say. His rivalry with Erdogan goes back decades, in a much different setting. In the mid-1990s, after Erdogan became mayor, he visited a meatball restaurant that Imamoglu ran in the Gungoren neighborhood of Istanbul. “I hosted him,” Imamoglu once recalled. “He ate meatballs in my restaurant. I didn’t take his money. He won’t pay that bill as long as he lives,” he added.
