The point is neither the CHP nor Imamoğlu
The historic Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) trial, in which CHP presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu and fellow elected mayors Resul Emrah Şahan and Mehmet Murat Çalık, along with numerous IBB bureaucrats, are being held in custody, began yesterday with 402 defendants. Erdoğan had said they ‘would not be able to look each other in the face,’ but İmamoğlu and his colleagues entered the courtroom to thunderous applause.
Their gazes conveyed pride rather than shame. The hearing was tense, as this was no ordinary trial. What transpired in the courtroom showed that the principle of ‘presumption of innocence’ did not apply to Imamoğlu, who had been awaiting the start of the trial in prison for a year. While the defence’s rights were restricted, those who came to the courtroom to observe the hearing were also threatened with expulsion. Under these conditions, Imamoğlu's lawyers rightly requested the judge's recusal.
Before assessing the political significance of the case, it is necessary to recall who Imamoğlu is. Because the answer to everything lies in this brief political biography. Imamoğlu is the most prominent opposition politician against Erdoğan in Turkey.
In 2014, he was elected Mayor of Beylikdüzü ahead of the AKP candidate. In 2019, he defeated the AKP candidates three times in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality elections, twice in a row. He was one of the key actors, along with Özgür Özel, in the CHP's change congress following the 2023 elections.
In the 2024 local elections, while the AKP fell to second place for the first time since its founding, Imamoglu was named the CHP's presidential candidate, securing an election victory after 47 years. And he did so with the will of over 15 million citizens... Numerous polls have shown that Imamoglu's vote potential exceeds that of Erdogan. So here is the ‘defendant’ in question: someone whose university degree was revoked, whose home was raided by hundreds of police officers the following morning, who has been held in prison for a year, who faces countless lawsuits, whose social media accounts have been blocked one after another, and who yesterday appeared before a judge as the ‘leader of a criminal organisation’ in the context of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality case.
Since the beginning of the 19 March operation in which Imamoğlu was arrested, the regime has defended itself against criticism that the case is political by saying: ‘All parties to this investigation are members of the CHP. Both the complainants and the accused are CHP members. The judiciary is doing its job. The AK Party has no part in this.’ For a long time, Erdoğan in particular propagated this line. They tried to create the perception that the case was being conducted for legal reasons and that the trial would be held within the framework of the law. However, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek, who shared the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality indictment with the public on 11 November 2025, was appointed Minister of Justice by Erdoğan just 92 days later. In other words, the judicial official who managed the investigation and prepared the indictment was appointed head of the Ministry of Justice 26 days before the trial based on this indictment began. After becoming minister, he frequently attended AKP organisation events and delivered political messages there. At the last event he attended, he praised the ‘internal front’ policy, which excludes the opposition majority from the regime. This sequence of events alone clarifies the answer to the question, ‘Where does the AKP stand in all this?’ Right at the centre!
The ruling party's plan to rein in the opposition, which includes the 19 March process, consists of multi-layered moves and objectives. The most obvious goal of the plan is to prevent Imamoğlu from running against Erdoğan. However, pushing Imamoğlu out of political competition does not completely eliminate the regime's continuity problem. This is because the country is in the midst of a social, economic and psychological collapse. There are countless problems and devastation. Twenty-three years of AKP rule have turned Turkey into a country where the struggle for survival has reached its peak for large sections of the population. Millions are struggling to keep their heads above water in a sea of debt and interest. Poverty and hopelessness are rampant, and all hope for the near future has been lost. Young people are unemployed, while most workers are condemned to live on low wages. In this environment, it is not enough to simply throw the opposition candidate behind bars; the regime knows that it must fragment the opposition as a whole. By disrupting the unity of the opposition, it wants to render opposition to Erdoğan and the demand for change ineffective at the ballot box. To this end, it is attempting to destabilise the CHP, both by stirring up opposition within the party base that has no significant support and by undermining Özel's leadership through the ‘candidacy competition’ it hopes will emerge. At the same time, the threat of ‘absolute nullity’ continues to loom. As part of the strategy to divide the opposition, the well-known ‘process’ is being implemented to alter the balance of alliances from above.
No ‘judicial’ process targeting the CHP, including the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality case, can be considered independently of the regime's political objectives. It defies logic to view the intensified pressure on the CHP after winning the last election and becoming the country's most voted political party as a ‘coincidence.’ Precisely for this reason, the issue is neither about the CHP nor Imamoğlu. The democratic order in Turkey has reached a point where the question of whether the regime will be transferred through elections is being asked. As the country approaches a sharp turn in its journey towards democracy, it is necessary to understand and discuss what is happening from a historical perspective, rather than through names and actors or by personalising it with fine details. It is clear and straightforward: for democracy to be saved, poverty to be eradicated, and justice to be established in a way that inspires confidence in everyone, this regime must first be defeated. Everything else is a matter of detail.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Mesele ne CHP ne de İmamoğlu, published in BirGün newspaper on March 10, 2026.
