28.03.2025

Three presidential ploys

While Erdoğan is ever more unpopular, the opposition is divided and the left is weak and demoralised. Esen Uslu reports on the aftermath of Ekrem İmamoğlu’s arrest

The tortured twists and political turns of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his regime have reached new extremes with the frontal attack on Istanbul mayor and rival presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu.

When İmamoğlu emerged as a strong candidate for the upcoming presidential elections, and managed to carry a large part of the Kurdish vote in the last local elections through an alliance called ‘Urban Reconciliation’, alarm bells started to ring in Cumhurbaşkanlığı Sarayı, the presidential palace. According to all the polls, even with the fullest support of his coalition partners, Erdoğan would lose against İmamoğlu. His plans to remain in power ‘until death do us part’ were in jeopardy. A string of policies were set in motion.

The first ploy was to drive a wedge between İmamoğlu and his party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and the Kurds. When the international conditions offered an opportunity, they launched a vague peace process initiative by allowing the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) to contact Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned and isolated leader of the Kurdish freedom movement. Erdoğan again kept a low profile and let his coalition partner Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), run the show.

Believing that the historical cleavage between CHP and the Kurdish freedom movement is easy to open up again, and that a grateful DEM would reconsider its support for the anti-Erdoğan candidate when there was something on offer, the regime quickly proceeded with their plan. The ‘peace process’ with the Kurds would be restarted despite the risk of offending the most conservative elements in the state security bureaucracy. Öcalan duly made his call for the Kurdish Workers Party to lay down arms and dissolve.

Constitution

The second ploy was to stop İmamoğlu’s candidacy in its tracks. To do that the pro-Erdoğan establishment made use of the Turkish constitution, which stipulates that any person running for president must have a university degree! Here Imamoğlu was vulnerable. There was a technical flaw in his university record. Although he graduated from Istanbul University, he did not pass the central university exams. In the mid-80s there were few private universities, so, if you were unable to get the necessary points to get into a state-run university, the short cut was to enrol in one of the newly emerging universities in northern Cyprus and then transfer back to Turkey after the first year. That is exactly what İmamoğlu did.

However, a year after he was admitted to Istanbul University in 1990, the Council of Higher Education decided that Girne American University in northern Cyprus, where İmamoğlu had completed his first year, should no longer be recognised. When it became clear that he would be Erdoğan’s rival. the politicised judiciary contacted the faculty that awarded İmamoğlu’s degree in order to get it cancelled. The request was rejected by the faculty, citing precedents, but the judiciary insisted and went to the university board with the same request.

Under immense pressure, the university board decided to invalidate the diplomas of about 30 former students - including İmamoğlu’s 31 years after his graduation! Among the other victims are the dean of management faculty of Galatasaray University, and many top managers of industrial and financial companies. They will most likely ask the courts to cancel this decision and might eventually be successful. However, any such case would drag on until the deadline for filing candidacies for the presidential election has past.

The third ploy was to appoint an administrator to Istanbul municipality instead of İmamoğlu to gain the control of its resources. The only option available for doing so was to get him charged with terrorism, so that after his arrest the appointment of an administrator would be legally possible. However, that alone did not seem enough, so an investigation into financial mismanagement was added to the mix.

In Esenyurt, one the largest municipalities in Greater Istanbul, the Kurdish mayor elected on a CHP ticket in line with Urban Reconciliation was arrested and one of the deputy governors of Istanbul province was appointed as administrator in his place. This is the same procedure that was widely used in the provinces where the DEM won the mayoral elections.

For example, the mayor of Şişli was arrested on terrorism-related charges, and the district governor was appointed as administrator in his place. Likewise, the mayor of Beşiktaş (one of the traditional heartlands of CHP support) and the mayor of Beykoz (a rapidly developing locality, where the AKP used to reign in land development and failed miserably in the last local elections). As with İmamoğlu, the mayor of Beylikdüzü was also arrested on charges of financial misconduct. So in addition to İmamoğlu, six local mayors are currently in prison.

Failed calculation

When the regime decided to turn the screws, it calculated on the basis of precedent that the CHP would not be able to do anything meaningful apart from hot air. That calculation proved wrong. While the new leadership of the CHP showed a vacillating approach, a huge groundswell of anger forced it to act.

CHP was preparing for a preliminary vote of its membership to choose its presidential candidate. When their candidate was disqualified, they decided to hold a straw poll, together with the primaries. This became a massive mobilisation. In the end 15 million people voted for İmamoğlu in last Sunday’s primary election. Considering that he was elected mayor in March 2024 local elections with just under 4.5 million votes, this result was quite an achievement.

The timing of the arrest and the outpouring of popular protest coincided with the Newroz - the Kurdish new year celebrations, which have become a massive display of national sentiment. While hundreds of thousands gather for five days in front of the municipal building in Saraçhane Square, on March 21 almost two million came together in a close-by meeting place in Yenikapı to celebrate Newroz.

While the two crowds failed to merge into a single manifestation, the speeches of DEM leaders were quite clear: they did not take Erdoğan’s bait, but showed their continued support for peace and democracy, while strongly rejecting the criminalisation of Urban Reconciliation.

The massive protest movement was the biggest urban uprising since the Gezi days. A new generation of youth has entered street politics, but CHP’s leadership did its utmost to pacify them and promote its pseudo-democratic, nationalist and anti-Kurdish stance. It tried to limit the aims of protest against the arrest of İmamoğlu, while on the streets the demand was for the resignation of Erdoğan. Nationalist slogans, Turkish flags and Ataturk’s posters were prominent, while youths shouting Kurdish slogans and demands were manhandled out of the demonstrations.

Leaders of rabid nationalist and anti-Kurdish opposition parties were given the opportunity to address the demonstrations under the pretext of solidarity. They poured their nationalist, fascist and anti-Kurdish poison out to the people gathered in front of the municipality building. Even the possible alternative presidential candidate, the mayor of Ankara, toed the line. His venomous speech probably ended any hopes of standing as a candidate in the vacuum created by İmamoğlu’s arrest.

Once again, CHP lost the opportunity to walk side-by-side with the Kurdish freedom movement and, while consolidating its nationalist base, it lost the chance to achieve any meaningful gain. The CHP leadership really seem not to understand that its chosen slogan, “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal”, is a slap in the face of the Kurds. Even under the new leadership, the true nature of the CHP as a brake on the popular opposition against the Erdoğan regime was revealed once again.

As the days of protest passed, the CHP leadership also attempted to water down street actions with individual actions for a consumer boycott of media companies, who deliberately did not mention a single word about the protests in their broadcasts. Since those media companies were owned by conglomerates that had good relations with the Erdoğan regime and produced goods and services for public consumption, a boycott seemed the appropriate action. However, calling for such watered-down actions only serves to divert the attention of the masses from the holders of political power.

At the same time, the regime is getting prepared to close down or neutralise CHP. Faced with such a possible move against alleged irregularities in the convening of its last congress and electing a new leadership team, the CHP has decided to hold an extraordinary congress on April 6. There was a danger that the party would be closed down or that the elections held in the previous congress would be annulled.

Old saying

However, as the saying goes, the worm that gnaws at the tree is inside. Some former CHP leaders attempted to win a court order to annul the decision to convene an extraordinary congress, on the grounds that the current CHP leadership was under investigation for irregularities and therefore had no right to make such a decision. Thus, the CHP’s fractured nature was once again put on display. Keeping it together to win a presidential election seems increasingly difficult. As long as the party’s internal relations remain so fractured, it would be almost impossible to keep together the electoral coalition which is needed to oust the president.

However, Erdoğan, who knows the difficulties and divided nature of the opposition, is struggling to find new ways and means to conduct his battle for political survival. The management committee of the Istanbul Bar Association was brought down by a court order. The IBA had been a thorn in the side of the regime, as it was a leading force of the liberal opposition. Erdoğan first tried to split it, claiming it had become too big to operate efficiently, and then sponsored the formation of a second bar association in 2020. However, this was not very successful, as only 2,600 lawyers opted for it, while 59,000 remained with the old association. Therefore, the beheading of the IBA seemed the only option for Erdoğan at this critical stage.

The politicised judiciary, used as a weapon against all opposition parties, is also employed against the press. There are more than 10 journalists and correspondents who have been convicted on trumped-up charges and imprisoned. While the judiciary was turning a blind eye to police brutality and arbitrary actions, the prosecutors and selected judges were appearing as Erdoğan’s spearheads. With the law being used with full force against the opposition, the CHP’s decision to wind down street actions seems even more short-sighted.

While the worsening economic conditions are forcing trade unions to carry out more and more strikes, they remain aloof from the general protest movement. The disorganised and dishevelled left is certainly unable to provide an alternative leadership for those following either the Kurdish freedom movement or CHP.

The order of the day for us is once again: organise, organise, organise!