Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, has described the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) return to power in İstanbul’s Üsküdar Municipality as a “blatant power grab,” saying the political and judicial system had been distorted to reverse an opposition victory at the ballot box.
The city council was required to elect an acting mayor after Mayor Sinem Dedetaş from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was arrested pending trial on July 31 and suspended from office by the Interior Ministry.
The council initially elected opposition candidate Sibel Tan Çetinkaya on August 5, but an administrative court suspended the decision following an AKP challenge, paving the way for a repeat vote.
The AKP regained control of the municipality on Tuesday when its candidate, Dündar Ziya Gültekin, defeated Çetinkaya 23-19 in the fourth round of voting. The result came after four council members elected on opposition tickets defected to the AKP and two opposition council members were arrested pending trial.
Sánchez Amor called the developments a “mockery of democracy” in post on X that included footage of people gathered outside the municipal building, including a woman crying after the result was announced.
“[I]t’s just normal that people reacted in tears,” Sánchez Amor said. “The whole system was perverted in order to win what was lost at the ballot box. It took arrests, defections, threats & today’s 4 rounds of voting. It’s a blatant power grab.”
People waiting outside the municipality protested the outcome, chanting, “You stole our will,” while AKP officials entering the building were met with boos, according to Turkish media reports.
Jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival, also condemned the result, sarcastically describing the AKP’s return to power in Üsküdar as an election victory achieved by arresting the mayor and city council members.
“The AK Party has now had the honor of winning an election by arresting the mayor and city council members,” İmamoğlu said in a statement shared on X by his Presidential Candidate Office.
“Üsküdar is not yours. İstanbul is not yours. Turkey is not yours. It belongs to the people,” he added, saying voters would ultimately reclaim what had been taken from them.
One of the four defectors, Ayhan Aydın, denied on Wednesday that he had been threatened by a prosecutor or any other public official, saying he had joined the AKP of his own free will.
Aydın’s denial was followed by judicial action against officials of the New Party, which was established by former CHP leader Özgür Özel and his allies after a court annulled the CHP congress that elected him chairman and reinstated former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in May.
Most CHP lawmakers and many party officials subsequently joined the New Party, which now leads the opposition response to investigations targeting municipalities won under the CHP banner in 2024.
Prosecutors launched investigations into the New Party’s İstanbul provincial chair, Özgür Çelik, and its Üsküdar district chair, Berk Tütüncü, after three city council members filed complaints accusing them of threats, insults and blackmail.
Çelik was also summoned for questioning as a suspect over his allegation that Aydın had been threatened into joining the AKP.
Üsküdar, a traditionally conservative district on İstanbul’s Asian side and home to President Erdoğan’s private residence, returned to AKP control two years after Dedetaş ended three decades of rule by Islamist-rooted parties there.
Dedetaş, the district’s first female mayor, won the March 2024 election with 49.9 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent AKP mayor Hilmi Türkmen, who received 42.3 percent.
She was arrested pending trial on July 31 on allegations of bribery, extortion through abuse of office and establishing and leading a criminal organization.
Dedetaş’s arrest is part of a series of criminal investigations targeting municipalities won by the opposition in the March 2024 local elections. The investigations have led to the detention, arrest or suspension of numerous mayors and municipal officials, most prominently İmamoğlu.
Opposition politicians say the investigations are politically motivated and intended to reverse their gains in the 2024 elections. The government denies interfering in the cases and maintains that Turkey’s judiciary operates independently.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
