Saturday saw some of the biggest anti-government protests in Turkey since the arrest of opposition leader and mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, less than two weeks ago. Ozgur Ozel, the leader of Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), who organised Saturday’s demonstration in Istanbul, claimed on X that there were 2.2 million people in the crowd.
Most reports from the scene said the number of demonstrators was at least in the hundreds of thousands. Protesters came despite a ban on gatherings, severe restrictions on transport services and a real possibility of arrest.
It all started on the morning of March 19. As Imamoglu was getting ready to go to work, he learned he was about to be detained. He quickly recorded a video message for his supporters: “Hundreds of police are at my door. We are up against huge bullying, but I will not back down,” he declared in the defiant message. “This immoral and tyrannical approach will undoubtedly be overturned by the will and resilience of our people.”
Imamoglu was taken to a high-security police station in Istanbul and was later shifted to Turkey’s notorious Silivri prison on the edge of the city after his formal arrest on what are seen as trumped-up charges of corruption and terrorism.
The arrest triggered a wave of mass protests across Turkey, posing the biggest threat to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22-year rule. Turkey hasn’t seen such large protests since the 2013 Gezi uprising in Istanbul, which resulted in a brutal crackdown by his regime.
Why Is Erdogan Afraid?
Imamoglu was taken into custody days before he was expected to be chosen by his Republican People’s Party (CHP) as the 2028 presidential nominee. Long seen as the main political rival to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Imamoglu had been leading in opinion polls even before his detention.
On the eve of his arrest, Istanbul University declared Imamoglu’s degree null, making him ineligible to run for the presidency. Higher education is a requirement in Turkey for presidential candidates.
However, presidential elections are not due in the country until 2028, and Erdogan is not eligible to run for a third term. So, why should he bother? The answer is that most analysts and political observers in Turkey believe Erdogan will run and change the constitution to make himself eligible. He knows that the only person who can defeat him at the ballot is Imamoglu.
Istanbul Matters
Imamoglu is politically astute, can be as populist as Erdogan, and has proven his electoral strength by defeating Erdogan’s candidates three times in the mayoral election in Istanbul, the country’s biggest city and its economic engine.
The loss of Istanbul to Imamoglu in 2019 was particularly humiliating for the Turkish president. The election was annulled and a fresh vote was ordered, but, as if to rub salt into the president’s wounds, Imamoglu was re-elected with an even bigger margin.
Imamoglu’s victory in the Istanbul mayoral election for the third time in 2024 cemented his position as a formidable politician and brought him closer to challenging Erdogan’s grip on Turkey’s top office.
Traditionally, whoever controls Istanbul also controls Turkey. Erdogan himself started his political career in the city and rose to the office of mayor before becoming the national leader.
This is also the reason behind mass protests. Most demonstrators belong to Generation Z, who have grown up to see only Erdogan as the national leader. They now see an alternative to him. Youngsters and others are turning out in large numbers because their demonstration is no longer limited to registering their protest against Imamoglu’s arrest, but is also for saving Turkey’s democracy itself. They want to see an end to Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic rule, during which he has acquired vast influence over the country’s judiciary, police and military.
As he has done in the past, Erdogan is using all the power at his disposal to try to suppress the protests. Train stations have been closed, Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square has been cordoned off, vehicles trying to reach protest sites are being stopped, and nearly 2,000 people have been arrested, including a dozen journalists and lawyers. Imamoglu’s advocate, Mehmet Pehlivan, and the CHP’s youth face, the 21-year-old Berkay Gezgin, are among those arrested. A Swedish journalist has been sent to jail and BBC correspondent Mark Lowen has been expelled. Notably, photographers have been specifically targeted to prevent the spread of the images of protests within the country and abroad. Turkey’s Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk, who has been a resident of Istanbul for 50 years, has said: “I have not seen as many so-called security measures on the streets as I have over the past few days.”
Erdogan’s crackdown, however, hasn’t worked so far. The number of protesters has only increased in the past week, as the large demonstration on Saturday showed.
Is History Repeating Itself?
History seems to be repeating itself. In 1998, while still mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan was arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred and spent four months in jail. His arrest only made him more popular and brought him to the national stage. That helped him later become the Prime Minister and then the President of Turkey.
Does a similar fate await Imamoglu? No one can say for sure. But the Erdogan regime’s move against him does indicate that the imprisoned Istanbul mayor is seen as the biggest political threat to the President. Days after Imamoglu’s arrest on March 19, his CHP party organised a vote to nominate him for the presidency. Nearly 15 million people turned up nationwide to vote for him. The number was several times bigger than his party’s total membership of under two million.
Both Erdogan and Imamoglu come from the Black Sea region of Turkey and moved to Istanbul with their parents and grew up in the city. While Imamoglu has been more popular among secularists, Erdogan is seen as a hero in the Anatolia region, the Asian part of Turkey, and rural areas. He has used political Islam to expand his base. In fact, the reason Erdogan was arrested and imprisoned in 1998 was because he challenged the strict secular principles of the modern Turkish state, founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, by reciting a poem: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
His party was banned, but Erdogan formed a new political group after his release. Once in power, he expanded his Islamist base. First as Prime Minister from 2003 and then as directly elected president since 2014, Erdogan has tried to portray himself as a democratic Islamist. He did remove the ban on wearing headscarves. However, he has also asked the Turkish people to have more children. As a father of four, he declared that “no Muslim family” should consider birth control or family planning. “We will multiply our descendants,” he said in May 2016. A year later, he appealed to Turkish people living in Europe to have at least five children. He also doesn’t believe in equal rights for men and women. Many Turks are not comfortable with such views and Erdogan’s political Islam policy as they still believe in the secular principles of Ataturk.
Control Of the Judiciary
Erdogan had used the failed 2016 military coup to launch a massive clampdown against his critics. He accused them of being associated with the Gulen movement, inspired by the teachings of late Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen, whom he accused of being behind the coup attempt.
He sacked 1,50,000 people from government posts and arrested 50,000, including journalists, lawyers, students and other critics. But the most worrying action for Turks was the purge in the judiciary. More than 4,300 judges were removed and 1,100 arrested and replaced by Erdogan loyalists and inexperienced newcomers. About 1,600 lawyers were prosecuted and nearly 500 were given long prison sentences. The way judges are appointed was also changed after the 2017 constitution amendment. The president now appoints four members of the committee that hire and fire judges. Seven members are appointed by parliament, where Erdogan has a majority, and the remaining two are the Justice Minister and one of his deputies.
Can Imamoglu Get a Fair Trial?
For the reasons given above, Imamoglu’s supporters are unsure whether he can get a fair trial. In his statements since the arrest, he has avoided criticising the judiciary.
Most independent observers believe the charges against him will not stick in a fair trial. But will Turkey’s judges act impartially and provide justice to Imamoglu? Or will they go along with the wishes of Erdogan, who would like his opponent to be disqualified from running for the presidency? There is hardly any international pressure on the Turkish President in the current geopolitical environment. US President Donald Trump is known to be a fan. Turkey is a member of NATO, and the European Union needs Erdogan because of the Ukraine conflict. He also has good relations with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. The other big power, China, is not known for speaking out against repression.
So, only domestic pressure can make any difference. The future of Turkey’s democracy appears to rest on young protesters’ shoulders. Twelve years ago, during the Gezi Park mass protests, when they thought they were about to make history, the Erdogan government brutally crushed the uprising. This time, they are backed by the country’s main opposition party, which controls six out of the seven biggest cities of Turkey. In Imamoglu, they have also found a charismatic leader. But Erdogan controls the parliament, judiciary, army, police and most of the Turkish media. No one can predict what he will do next.
(Naresh Kaushik is a former editor at the Associated Press and BBC News and is based in London)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author