Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which has been under a legal crackdown for more than a year, has reiterated that jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu remains its presidential candidate and that it has no plans to put forward an alternate, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Anka news agency.
CHP spokesperson Zeynel Emre told reporters at party headquarters in Ankara on Wednesday that the party would not “act on the assumption” that court cases or political pressure could prevent İmamoğlu from running.
İmamoğlu, widely seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival, was arrested March 23, the day the CHP was set to hold a primary to select its presidential candidate. The vote was held as planned, and a record 15.5 million people cast ballots for the jailed mayor after the CHP opened the polls to the general public beyond its 1.5 million registered members.
“We will stand by our candidate,” Emre said. “There is clear unlawfulness here. İmamoğlu received 15.5 million votes without even running a national campaign. With a full campaign, that support would rise to 25 million. Our stance is firm.”
Asked whether CHP leader Özgür Özel, who was recently elected party chairman for the fourth time since his first election in November 2023, could emerge as a presidential candidate if İmamoğlu were barred from running, Emre dismissed the possibility.
“If we accept that scenario, we would be surrendering to the government’s judicial operations,” he said. “Our presidential candidate is Ekrem İmamoğlu.”
İmamoğlu was detained early on March 19, sparking mass protests that spread across Turkey. The vote was taking place as an İstanbul court formalized his arrest in a corruption probe. Several hours later, the interior ministry suspended him as mayor when he was being sent to a prison on the megacity’s western outskirts.
Last month Turkish prosecutors filed a long-awaited indictment of İmamoğlu, accusing him of leading a vast criminal network and committing 142 offenses that could result in a sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison.
The nearly 4,000-page indictment accuses the mayor of running a criminal organization, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, extortion and bid rigging.
İmamoğlu has “strongly denied all accusations” in statements to the police and prosecutors.
The CHP has condemned the case as “purely political,” saying it aims to eliminate Erdoğan’s strongest challenger ahead of the next presidential election scheduled for 2028.
The CHP also claims other investigations targeting its mayors and officials are politically motivated, in an attempt to discredit the party, which emerged as the most successful contender in the local elections held last year, in the eyes of the public.
According to a recent CHP report, which details the ongoing crackdown on the party, 16 CHP mayors have been jailed, and trustees have been appointed to 13 municipalities, including İstanbul’s Esenyurt and Şişli districts, since the crackdown on the party began in October 2024.
