He does not have the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his verve or his presence, but he represents the hope and perhaps the future of Turkey. Ekrem Imamoğlu, the very popular mayor of Istanbul, arrested this week by the authorities for “corruption” and “terrorism”, should still be appointed, Sunday, March 23, future CHP candidate, the Republican Party of the Turkish people. If the next presidential election will not be held until 2028, the decision to organize a primary, a first in the history of the main opposition formation, aims to protect a political figure capable of bringing the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Why such relentlessness against the very popular mayor of Istanbul? The reason is very simple. Today, if a presidential election should be organized, Ekrem Imamoğlu would largely impose itself, as shown in the last polls. And power, which is in the hands of the AKP, the Party of Justice and Development, has only, justice, which it instrumentalizes, to prevent it from imposing itself.
What’s more, the president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan does not have the right, constitutionally speaking, to represent itself for a third term. So, a priori, Ekrem Imamoğlu would face a much less popular adversary, which would offer him a boulevard for a possible victory. And if by chance, he was elected at the head of the Türkiyeit would be, according to Ahmet inl, a disaster for the receipt Tayyip Erdoğan. “” If it is elected, he will be in an autocratic regime, tailor -made for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And so, he will have the full powers now available to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It would be a total explosion of the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan system He explains.
For the political scientist, a former lecturer at Paris I University and former professor at the University of Galatasaray in Istanbul, if by adventure Ekrem Imamoğlu would come to the presidency, ” There are probably surveys on embezzlement that will open up on businesses, families who are close to Erdoğan and that are suspected of embezzlement of funds or corruption. It is a real danger to the autocratic regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ».
Read tooTürkiye: the opponent Ekrem Imamoglu determined to be a candidate for the presidency despite the obstacles
Imamoğlu’s “moult”
In 2019, before he was elected for the first time mayor of Istanbul, it was said of Ekrem Imamoğlu that he had no charisma, that it was not a good tribune. If this was the case in 2019, since then, the character has evolved. The fervor that accompanied him after his first election, the thousands of stambouliots who had celebrated his victory, certainly had an effect on him. In 2024, with a report considered to be very positive, he was re -elected mayor of Istanbul, this time with ten points ahead of his competitor of the AKP, proof that he brings together.
And then, he does not appeal to his electorate, but also Turks who do not traditionally vote for the CHP. As Didier Billion, deputy director of IRIS and specialist in Turkey and the Middle East explains, his relationship to religion, a primordial question in Turkey, has something to do with it.
“” It has an extremely relaxed perception and approach to Islam issues. I speak of Islam as a religious practice, I do not speak there of political Islam, of which he is an adversary, since political Islam is embodied by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party, the AKP, the Party of Justice and Development. I remember, for example, that during one of his presidential campaigns, in the in-between-tours, he had invited an imam in a conference. For Kemalists (CHP members founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), it’s almost a crime. So it is someone who tries to do, step by step, evolve the Kemalist doctrine, especially in its relationship to Islam, which we understand that it is one of the essential files of political life in Türkiye “, He explains.
Ekrem Imamoğlu understood that he had to expand his electoral base, which implies tackling that of the AKP of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If the CHP won the last municipal elections in 2024, and today leads the largest cities in the country – the capital Ankara included -, as Didier Billion explains, the situation in the campaigns is far from the same for the main opposition training:
“” Today, you have two Türkiye who are looking at each other in earthenware dogs, which are almost not talking about, which do not communicate, which do not understand each other. We are truly in this situation. So obviously, in major cities, the political current embodied by Ekrem Imamoğlu is the majority since, not only, was elected twice mayor of Istanbul, but that all the other major cities of Turkey are in the hands of his party. Conversely, in the Turkish countryside, which voted massively for Mr. Erdoğan’s party, he is seen as an anti-religious, as someone who must be fought, who wants to question the precepts of religion. »»
It is therefore this relation to religion, but also its modernism which corresponds to that of Turkish society, which notably allowed Ekrem Imamoğlu to reach such a popularity coast today. A factor that has accentuated the fears of the authorities who hastened to Stop him early in the morning of Wednesday, March 19. It must be said that Turkish justice has been on Ekrem Imamoğlu for years now. He alone cumulates an incredible list of business.
Imamoğlu, Erdoğan’s nightmare
And even if his arrest this week has surprised certain specialists, the pressure of the authorities exerted in recent times was not a good omen, according to Didier Billion:“” In recent weeks, there have been many attacks in the press calling into question the validity of its diplomas. You should know that in Türkiye, you must have a higher diploma to be able to present yourself to the Presidency of the Republic. So obviously, if such attacks are failed against him, it is because he is annoying and that he is a serious candidate and a serious competitor compared to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. »»
For Ahmet inl, this pressure and the arrest this week of Ekrem Imamoğlu reflect the fear that the authorities of the mayor of Istanbul have: ” Power acted a little in panic. With the implementation of primaries, the popularity of Ekrem Imamoğlu was beginning to go beyond its traditional popularity, and therefore, the government realized that it had no political means of stopping its rise. »»
But for the political scientist Ahmet inl, this evolution of the situation could be counterproductive. “” In Türkiye, this type of relentlessness on the part of the government makes the person targeted even more popular. I think we can say that today, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has really created his rival. Even from prison, Ekrem Imamoğlu will be able to continue to weigh massively on the next political developments in the country “, According to him.
From now on, it is a bit of the unknown who awaits Ekrem Imamoğlu. His party, the CHP, confirmed the holding of the primary on Sunday, March 23. Party management has even decided to open the election to the party’s non-adherents with the establishment of a second urn. Ekrem Imamoğlu could therefore officially be appointed CHP candidate for the next presidential election scheduled for 2028. But will he still be in prison, or will the authorities bend under the weight of popular pressure? Only the future will tell us.
To listen tooTürkiye: Imamoğlu’s arrest is part “of a very large liberal anti-opposition operation”