Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu is known for his quick temper, from his confrontations with taxi drivers to his public outburst at an airport against a governor. This time, his temper found another target: the city’s chief prosecutor, Akın Gürlek. A new indictment over his threatening remarks against Gürlek adds to his growing legal challenges. These challenges may ultimately prove his undoing as the mayor seems to be preparing for a bid to run in the next presidential election against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Most of the legal challenges, related to alleged wrongdoings during his tenure as mayor, involve a ban from politics.
A popular figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), even more than Chairperson Özgür Özel, Imamoğlu’s political trajectory was stained with criticism over his governance of Türkiye’s most populated city. But this did not daunt the politician, who was handpicked by Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to run for the city’s top office in 2019 while he was serving as a mayor of the far-flung district of Istanbul. His angry rhetoric targeting Erdoğan escalated as he started spending less time in the city and day-to-day municipal work. Since Özel named him and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş as potential contenders for the 2028 presidential elections, Imamoğlu has been a prominent figure in CHP rallies with rumors circulating he was the one pulling the strings in the party, not Özel.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul is asking for a prison term of up to seven years and four months for Imamoğlu on charges of insulting a public official and threatening and targeting people tasked with counterterrorism. The latest indictment was triggered when the mayor uttered threatening remarks against Gürlek in the aftermath of a string of investigations against municipalities run by the CHP.
Imamoğlu declared war against Gürlek after prosecutors launched investigations against the CHP’s mayors in Istanbul districts.
Further highlighting his goal of running for the presidency, Imamoğlu said Wednesday that Erdoğan was the “real plaintiff” in the case, not the prosecutor.
According to the polls regarding the CHP’s potential candidates, Imamoğlu lags behind Yavaş, while Özel comes in third in opinion polls.
Encouraged by unprecedented wins in last year’s municipal elections, the CHP slowly built up expectations for an early election in the past months. The high cost of living, which the party squarely blamed on the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), drove up the CHP’s ambitious campaign to attract disillusioned voters.
The party will hold a pre-vote among members to determine the presidential candidate in the coming days.
Yavaş and Imamoğlu, however, are on opposing sides regarding the process, with Ankara’s mayor arguing it’s yet “too soon” to pick a presidential candidate “while there are economic hardships.”
“The candidates should not be exhausting one another and the people should not be occupied with this,” Yavaş said but also rejected the idea of refraining from running in a CHP pre-election. “I only think it’s too soon for candidacy,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Imamoğlu, meanwhile, backed the CHP’s pre-election move, calling it a “historic inclination and a democratic revolution.”
The Istanbul mayor is viewed as one of the architects of a process in the CHP that cost former Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu his seat. Although it was Kılıçdaroğlu who propelled Imamoğlu into the spotlight, the mayor was caught on video discussing an alternative extraordinary congress of the party with other CHP members after Kılıçdaroğlu was defeated in the 2023 presidential elections. Months later, the CHP held an intraparty election and picked Özel as his successor. Before that election, Kılıçdaroğlu stated that he was “backstabbed” by intraparty groups.
The mayor’s show of force as a future presidential candidate was most evident as he entered a courthouse in Istanbul to testify in an investigation last month. When he emerged from the courthouse after his testimony, Imamoğlu climbed on a platform bus stylized as buses of politicians campaigning for elections. Surrounded by a relatively large crowd of supporters, Imamoğlu made a fervent speech while accompanied by Yavaş, downplaying the charges against him and claiming he was being targeted.
Political pundits say Imamoğlu, in a way, follows in the footsteps of Erdoğan. Erdoğan, who traces his ancestral roots to the Black Sea region like Imamoğlu, made a name for himself as Istanbul mayor before founding the AK Party. Like Imamoğlu, Erdoğan faced lawsuits during his tenure but unlike the latter, was imprisoned briefly for reciting a poem branded as “reactionary” during the dominance of a secret military junta aided by the CHP in the late 1990s that led to the so-called “postmodern” coup of 1997. The parallels end there though, as accusations against Imamoğlu involve municipal business.
Cases against Imamoğlu
The latest indictment against the mayor says he should be sentenced to up to seven years and four months in prison, accusing him of using his influence as a mayor to exert pressure on judiciary organs and members in a bid to win favors in cases in lawsuits involving his party.
Last month, the mayor made “statements qualifying as threats” against Gürlek’s family after the arrest of Rıza Akpolat, the CHP mayor for the city’s Beşiktaş district, on charges of corruption. The CHP has singled out the prosecutor for acting as a “guillotine” for Erdoğan following Akpolat’s arrest, accused him of orchestrating the arrest of Ahmet Özer, another CHP mayor who was serving in the Esenyurt district before he was charged with links to the PKK terrorist group last year.
The government has dismissed accusations of political interference in the cases and says the judiciary is independent.
The indictment says Gürlek, who has prosecuted cases against terrorist groups, has already been on the target list of several groups, including the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and that Imamoğlu further propagated the targeting. He is also accused of using insulting expressions against Gürlek and seeking to intimidate the prosecutor.
On Jan. 27, the mayor was the focus of another investigation after his scathing remarks targeting S.B., an expert witness assigned to several cases involving alleged wrongdoings within Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB). The latest indictment refers to this as well. “When the two cases are assessed, Ekrem Imamoğlu aimed to influence judiciary organs and members by using the power of his office,” the indictment says. The prosecutor has appealed to the court to execute relevant articles of the Turkish Penal Code to deprive the accused of his political offices if convicted.
Another case against Imamoğlu is now before an appeals court. Members of the Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) have filed a lawsuit against the mayor after he said in 2019 “those who canceled the March 31 elections are fools,” in reference to the cancellation of mayoral elections in Istanbul after the AK Party filed a complaint of irregularities. If the higher court upholds a verdict another court issued in 2022, he will be sentenced to two years and seven months in prison and will be subject to a political ban.
In another ongoing lawsuit, Imamoğlu is accused of corruption in a public tender in 2015 while he was serving as mayor of the Beylikdüzü district. The next hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for April 11. If convicted, he may be handed down a prison term of seven years.
Imamoğlu also faces a potential lawsuit on abuse of duty for excessive spending of municipal resources for cultural events organized by the IBB. An investigation is underway over allegations and if the court accepts a future indictment, he may again face a prison sentence.
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