Istanbul mayor Imamoglu arrested

Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was on Wednesday morning arrested, hours after his university degree was revoked and two days before his party the CHP was set to name him as its candidate to challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the country’s next presidential election.

Imamoglu was one of 106 people to be arrested on Wednesday morning in connection with Turkish police investigations into the alleged illegal awarding of tenders, bid rigging, fraud, and bribery.

He now stands accused of having “led a criminal organisation”, while the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office saying it had obtained “footage of money counting inside the CHP”.

Alongside Imamoglu, his campaign manager Necati Ozkan, construction company Imamoglu Insaat’s general manager Tuncay Yilmaz, Greater Istanbul municipality secretary-general Can Akin Caglar, Istanbul planning agency chairwoman Bugra Gokce, and Istanbul’s cultural organisation chairman Murat Abbas were all arrested on these charges.

Additionally, charges of “aiding the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)”, a proscribed terrorist organisation in Turkey and the European Union, were also filed against Imamoglu, with the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office saying that “individuals with connections to the PKK were hired in the Greater Istanbul municipality and its subsidiaries”.

The Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office said these charges are related to activities during last year’s local elections, where Imamoglu won re-election as Istanbul mayor by a landslide and the CHP became the first party since the ruling AK Party was formed in 2001 to beat them in a nationwide count

Greater Istanbul municipality deputy secretary-general Mahir Polat and the mayor of Istanbul’s Sisli district Resul Ekrem Sahan were both also arrested on the terrorism charges.

It has not yet been made clear whether the charges brought against him are related to investigations surrounding Aziz Ihsan Aktas, who stands accused of being at the centre of an organised crime ring which had rigged government contracts in Turkey and secured itself billions of liras worth of funding before laundering the assets.

Turkish newspaper Takvim had earlier reported that related company Bilginay has received billions of Turkish liras’ worth of tenders from the Greater Istanbul municipality.

The arrest of Aktas and the seizure of some of his assets had briefly caused concern over the stability of northern Cyprus’ electricity supply, with a boat scheduled to carry fuel from the Turkish province of Hatay to the island briefly having been seized before making the journey.

Imamoglu announced his arrest in a video he posted on Twitter, hastily dressing himself and explaining the situation.

“I am sorry to say this. A handful of minds trying to usurp the will of our nation have used my beloved police officers as instruments of evil and have gathered hundreds of police officers at the doors of 16 million Istanbul people,” he began.

“We are faced with great tyranny, but we will not give up. I entrust myself to my nation. Let everyone know that I will stand tall.”

CHP leader Ozgur Ozel described Imamoglu’s arrest as a “coup d’état against our next president”.

“Making decisions on behalf of the people, using force to replace the will of the people or to obstruct it is a coup d’état. There is currently a force in place preventing the nation from determining its next president.

“Our nation loves its state, but if someone tries to turn the state against the nation, the nation will not allow it.”

Ruling alliance party MHP leader Devlet Bahceli dismissed talk of a coup d’état, however, saying, “to denigrate a legal measure by calling it a coup d’état and to prepare the quest to take to the streets is a political corruption which has gone mad and has lost its concept of reason and morality”.

He added that he has “full confidence” in the judiciary.

Meanwhile, the Istanbul provincial governor’s office announced that all meetings, demonstrations, and press conferences within the province have been banned until March 23 at the earliest.

Additionally, metro lines in and around the city’s centre and in particular close to its central Taksim Square, the scene of demonstrations and civil unrest in the summer of 2013, were all closed, while the BBC reported that “many streets in Istanbul were also closed to traffic”.

Internet access monitor NetBlocks also reported that access to social media platforms including Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok was limited in Turkey.

The arrest and subsequent sequence of events comes hour after Imamoglu’s degree was on Tuesday revoked by Istanbul University over a report which found that the university in northern Cyprus at which he began his studies before transferring to Istanbul was not adequately recognised.

Imamoglu was one of 28 people to have his degree revoked, with the university writing that it had revoked his degree on the strength of a report written by Turkey’s higher education council (Yok).

The saga comes after Imamoglu had declared his intention to run to be Turkey’s next president, with the CHP set to hold an internal election on Sunday to decide who its candidate will be.

Imamoglu is the clear frontrunner to be his party’s candidate, with party leader Ozgur Ozel and Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas both having publicly stated that they will not stand.

However, Turkey forbids people who have not obtained a university degree from running for president, thus meaning that if the revocation of his degree stands, Imamoglu will be ineligible to run.

Imamoglu first moved to Cyprus in 1988, first studying at Famagusta’s Eastern Mediterranean University before transferring to Kyrenia’s Girne American University. He then transferred to Istanbul University in 1990, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1994.