Turkish authorities have detained an opposition mayor in western Turkey as part of a bribery and misconduct investigation, the latest move in an expanding legal campaign targeting municipalities run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkish Minute reported.
Ömer Günel, the mayor of Kuşadası, a large resort town on Turkey’s Aegean coast, was taken into custody on Friday along with five other suspects. The operation was coordinated by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which said investigators had reached a “reasonable suspicion of crime.”
Prosecutors said simultaneous raids were carried out in Aydın, İzmir and Antalya provinces. Detainees include the municipality’s zoning and urban planning director, identified only by the initials A.T., and the construction inspection director, identified as M.B.G.
Turkish media reports said the other suspects include municipal architect and urban planner M.C., businessman and former Kuşadası Sports Club president F.Z. and businessman H.K.
The suspects are being investigated on allegations of bribery and “extortion in office,” although authorities have not disclosed further details about the accusations.
Günel’s detention, which comes amid a legal crackdown targeting opposition-run municipalities that has been growing since the CHP’s victories in the March 2024 local elections, attracted strong criticism from CHP officials.
Mahmut Tanal, a CHP lawmaker from Şanlıurfa, said the case reflected what he described as unequal application of the law in Turkey.
“There are now two different legal systems in Turkey,” Tanal wrote on X. “If you are a CHP mayor, you are detained at dawn, investigations are opened and you are sent to jail. But if you join the Justice and Development Party [AKP], investigations into you end with non-prosecution or acquittal.”
Tanal also pointed to political developments in Aydın province, where Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu left the CHP and joined the ruling AKP in August 2025. He suggested that while investigations into municipalities aligned with the government are appearing to ease, opposition-run districts such as Kuşadası face legal action, arguing that different standards are being applied within the same province.
Burhanettin Bulut, the CHP’s vice chair responsible for media and public relations, also condemned the detention.
“We will never bow to lawlessness, political operations or these interventions against democracy,” Bulut was quoted by the ANKA news agency as saying.
Growing pressure on opposition municipalities
The detention of Günel comes amid an intensifying legal crackdown on the CHP following its sweeping victory in the March 2024 local elections, when the party defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AKP in many major cities.
Since then prosecutors have launched a series of investigations targeting opposition mayors and municipal officials. Fifteen CHP mayors are currently in prison, most on corruption or terrorism-related charges that critics say are politically motivated. Courts have also invalidated CHP party congress results and replaced elected party officials with court-appointed administrators in multiple cities.
The most prominent case involves İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was detained on March 19, 2025, days before CHP members selected him as their presidential candidate for a future election. He faces charges including leading a criminal organization, embezzlement, bid-rigging, bribery and espionage in an indictment that prosecutors say documents a decade-long criminal enterprise within the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
İmamoğlu, who first won the İstanbul mayoralty in 2019 after defeating Erdoğan’s party in a historic upset, is widely regarded as the opposition’s strongest potential challenger to Erdoğan in the presidential election scheduled for 2028.
Opposition leaders say the legal cases are part of a broader strategy to weaken the CHP’s local power base and pressure its officials to defect to the ruling party. Over 60 opposition mayors have switched allegiance to the AKP over the past two years, a trend critics attribute to political pressure and intimidation.
