Turkish authorities have escalated a sweeping crackdown on opposition officials, detaining five mayors and issuing dozens of arrest warrants in a campaign widely seen as targeting Istanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, after his challenge to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s long-standing grip on power.
According to state news agency Anadolu, police on Saturday raided municipal offices in Istanbul and arrested three district mayors from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), along with a former CHP lawmaker. Two additional CHP mayors from the southern province of Adana were also detained, bringing the total number of arrests to 30.
The arrests come amid intensifying pressure on İmamoğlu, who was jailed in March on charges of corruption and terrorism — allegations he has vehemently denied. The 53-year-old mayor, long seen as Erdoğan’s most formidable political rival, accused the Turkish president of “weaponising the judiciary” to eliminate political threats ahead of future elections.
President Erdoğan has gone so far as to accuse the Istanbul municipality of operating as a “criminal organisation,” intensifying what critics say is a politically motivated assault on one of Turkey’s last remaining opposition-led power centers. The backlash has been fierce. İmamoğlu’s imprisonment sparked the largest anti-government protests in Turkey since the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations, drawing tens of thousands into the streets and galvanizing opposition sentiment nationwide.
Public opinion polls have consistently shown İmamoğlu as a leading contender capable of unseating Erdoğan in a direct presidential contest — a prospect that now appears increasingly remote under the current crackdown.
The political turmoil has rattled markets. Investors, spooked by the instability, prompted Turkey’s central bank to burn through an estimated $50 billion of its reserves to shore up the beleaguered lira, which continues to hover near record lows. The country’s main stock index has plunged 17% since İmamoğlu’s arrest.
In response to surging inflation and capital flight, the central bank was forced to raise interest rates to 46% — a dramatic hike meant to counter annual inflation now running at 38%. Despite these efforts, new data released Friday showed the Turkish economy grew just 2% in the first quarter, underperforming analysts’ expectations and further straining the $1.3 trillion economy.
While criticism from Turkey’s NATO allies has remained relatively muted, the European Union has begun to voice concern. Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, visited İmamoğlu in prison on Friday and posted on social media platform X, urging Ankara to respect the rule of law and release the opposition mayor.
The ruling AK Party insists that the arrests are legally justified and not politically motivated. “No one is above the law,” government officials have repeatedly said in public statements.
Still, the CHP has called foul. The party’s chairman, Özgür Özel, convened an emergency meeting of CHP lawmakers and local officials from Istanbul to strategize a response to the latest wave of detentions.
Since March, hundreds of CHP members and municipal staff in Istanbul have reportedly been arrested in what opposition figures say is a systematic effort to dismantle their political infrastructure in Turkey’s largest and most influential city.
As Erdoğan tightens his grip and Turkey’s opposition reels from escalating judicial and political pressure, the fate of İmamoğlu — and with him, the country’s democratic future — remains a critical point of international scrutiny and domestic resistance.
