A senior leader of Turkey’s beleaguered main opposition party accused the government of fabricating enemies in a politically motivated crackdown to reassert control after its election defeat last year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) “politically named the new enemy on March 19, [and] the new enemy is the CHP,” said Burhanettin Bulut, a deputy leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Bulut, in charge of the party’s public relations and media, said Erdoğan was threatening the country’s democratic foundations through his government’s campaign of arrests and lawsuits.
Turkish authorities have detained a string of elected officials on charges ranging from corruption to terrorism-related offenses, including, on March 19, İstanbul’s powerful Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu — Erdoğan’s main rival.
“This government keeps itself alive by constantly defining an enemy,” Bulut told Agence France-Presse in an interview at the party’s headquarters in the capital of Ankara.
The government “sustains its political strategy through polarization, manufacturing a foe and launching relentless perception campaigns in a bid to consolidate its voter base,” he said.
A year after Erdoğan’s allies suffered heavy losses in local elections, İmamoğlu’s detention triggered the country’s largest street protests in over a decade.
“This isn’t just about the CHP,” Bulut added.
“From the grocery store clerk to the apprentice, from businesspeople to artists and journalists — people across this country are afraid.”
‘Dynamite’ for republic
Since İmamoğlu’s arrest, Turkish authorities have arrested 16 CHP mayors, including ones in key districts of İstanbul, and replaced elected officials in at least three municipalities with government-appointed trustees.
Among those detained is the acting mayor of İstanbul’s Büyükçekmece district, a party source told Agence France-Presse.
CHP leader Özgür Özel, re-elected at an emergency party congress a month after İmamoğlu was jailed, has come under mounting legal pressure meanwhile.
He faces lawsuits on alleged offenses including “insulting the president” and vote-buying at a party congress.
Media reports have suggested efforts were under way to lift Özel’s parliamentary immunity so he could face prison.
Bulut alleged the crackdown “creates a smokescreen for the real issues facing society — poverty, injustice, the erosion of democracy and individual rights — that are pushed out of the public agenda.”
Arresting Özel, he said, would be “like planting dynamite under the foundations of the republic,” but he played down concerns for its impact on the CHP, which he said was “not a leader-centered party.”
He dismissed government claims of a crisis in the CHP as “political theater.”
“It’s a founding party, with a deep-rooted history, led by some of the most important figures in Turkish political life, starting with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,” founder of the modern Turkish Republic, he said.
“That’s why interfering with the leadership of this party is not something that can be done easily.”
Turkish democracy and justice
The government’s crackdown started with a key arrest seven months after the March 2024 local elections.
Authorities detained the CHP mayor of İstanbul’s working-class district of Esenyurt, Ahmet Özer, accusing him of membership of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
They have since removed CHP mayors in three districts in Ovacık in the east as well as in Esenyurt and Şişli and replaced them with trustees.
The government has insisted the arrests have judicial legitimacy, but critics say they are aimed at neutralizing dissent in big cities where the opposition won in the elections.
The government recently claimed a historic breakthrough by overseeing the disbanding of the PKK, ending its decades-long campaign of attacks.
In that context Bulut argued, “You can’t claim to support democracy and justice while appointing trustees at the same time.
“If you’re serious about democracy, then local consensus must be part of the process.”
Despite pressure and fear tactics, he insisted the CHP would “be the clear winner” in the next election, expected by 2028.
© Agence France-Presse
