When crowds of police arrived at the residence of the Istanbul mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, to arrest him in a dawn raid last week, his response was calm and deliberate. The mayor of Turkey’s largest city – a longtime rival of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – issued a video message to his supporters, filming himself as he put on a crisp white shirt and tie to be dressed for his detention.
“A small group is trying to usurp the will of the people,” he said. “I will stand strong.”
Days later, İmamoğlu was officially arrested on corruption charges and taken to a high-security prison on the edge of the city he has governed since 2019. Turkey’s interior ministry then removed İmamoğlu from office, even as the Republican People’s party (CHP) nominated him as its candidate for president at the next election after a primary vote.
Party officials said 15 million people cast a ballot, boasting that the overwhelming majority were from non-party members. Since İmamoğlu’s detention, tens of thousands of people filled the streets around Istanbul’s city hall as part of nightly demonstrations that have quickly taken hold in many places far beyond traditional CHP areas.
This includes people in İmamoğlu’s hometown of Trabzon, part of the coastal Black Sea region where Erdoğan has his roots and some of his strongest support. Local media showed crowds marching through the street holding masks of İmamoğlu’s face over the weekend, as CHP politicians called praised him as “Trabzon’s son” and “a brother to all of us”.
It is this kind of grassroots support for İmamoğlu in Erdoğan’s heartland that has cemented the affable 54-year-old former businessman as the president’s main rival, and the only politician capable of challenging him at the ballot box. İmamoğlu has often rebuffed observations about the parallels between him and Erdoğan, calling himself a staunch social democrat with no further similarities to the president other than their shared heritage and love of football.
But İmamoğlu’s detention has only provided another opportunity for his story to parallel Erdoğan’s, one that risks undermining the Turkish president in the long run. Erdoğan became the mayor of Istanbul in the mid-1990s, before he was jailed for reading a poem, emerging from prison to galvanise his status as a politician worthy of the national stage, overcoming a ban from politics to become prime minister just four years after his release.
“We are reliving the political dramas of the 1990s where Erdoğan was targeted by the state, except this time Erdoğan has become the state,” said Soner Cagaptay, a biographer of Erdoğan and an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“İmamoğlu is the new Erdoğan,” he said, adding that jailing his rival could backfire for the Turkish president.
Dr Ziya Meral, a lecturer at Soas University of London, said: “Erdoğan frequently uses the expression that if you win Istanbul you win the nation, and it echoes his own political career.
“It means if you can do a good job as Istanbul mayor, win the trust of people and deliver for them, then a national victory is much more likely, and there’s an element of that with İmamoğlu.”
The Turkish authorities have long sought to make İmamoğlu’s rule more difficult, including annulling his first election victory in 2019 before he won a second vote with a larger margin. İmamoğlu was later served a political ban and jail time, accused of insulting election officials after his initial victory, which he fought with a prolonged appeal.
But governing Turkey’s largest city has been fraught with obstacles, including the government blocking many of Imamoğlu’s policies that required federal approval, and Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party fighting the mayor on everything, from taxis to metro lines.
“All our decisions are being blocked,” he said in an interview three years ago, deftly batting away questions about his presidential ambitions or the cost of the wristwatch he normally wears that he said is intended as an inheritance for his son.
“İmamoğlu has a lot of political charm with the voters, he’s really personable. He comes across as friendly, and quick-witted,” said Meral. “He has wide appeal, and his more accommodating in his outlook compared to other candidates from the CHP.”
With İmamoğlu now seen as “the victim of a political campaign”, Meral added, this could increase his support, even among unlikely supporters of the opposition.
What İmamoğlu’s presidential run could look like from detention remains unclear. An election is due in 2028, although an early vote is expected.
Feting his newfound nomination, İmamoğlu issued a message from prison to his supporters, one equally intended for his jailers: “This extraordinary moment has terrified a small group of ill-intentioned people. They are right to be terrified.”
