The Turkish Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested a 2,000-year prison sentence on 142 charges against former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who has been detained since March on charges of involvement in corruption schemes, which he denies. Many considered that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival, a popular politician, was the only one capable of defeating Erdogan in the 2028 elections.
The prosecutor’s office also asked Turkey’s main appeals court to open a case to dissolve the opposition Republican People’s Party, the party to which Imamoglu belongs, on the grounds that the group was funded with illicit resources. Last year, the party faced unprecedented judicial repression.
İmamoğlu claims to be a victim of political persecution. He was arrested on charges of corruption and supporting a terrorist group, and the Republican People’s Party entered into a coalition with the Kurdish Popular Equality and Democracy Party, accused of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Türkiye, the United States and a number of European countries consider the PKK a terrorist group. On March 1 of this year, the PKK declared a ceasefire with the Turkish government after decades of armed conflict in an attempt to create an autonomous Kurdish region between Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
Istanbul Prosecutor Akin Gurlik announced the charges against İmamoğlu in a conversation with reporters on Tuesday (11), saying that the document names 402 suspects who constitute an alleged criminal organization accused of bribery, fraud and bid rigging.
Gorlik stated that the network would have caused losses worth 160 billion Turkish liras (21.3 billion Brazilian riyals) to the Turkish state over ten years. The indictment, which extends to more than 4,000 pages, includes an organizational chart that depicts Imamoglu as the founder and leader of the criminal group.
The text cites the conclusions of the Financial Crimes Investigation Board, expert analysis, and states that several businessmen were forced to pay bribes through a secret fund operating within the city hall.
Imamoglu’s arrest caused a wave of protests in Türkiye at the time against Erdogan’s government, which arrested more than 1,400 people, including seven journalists, to suppress the movement.
The former mayor is awaiting judgment in this case. In April, he testified for the first time in Marmara Prison. Imamoglu said: “I am here because I won three elections in Istanbul, the city that was once called ‘Beloved Istanbul’, the city about which it was once said ‘Whoever wins in Istanbul wins in Turkey’, the city they thought they owned,” in a clear reference to Erdogan and his allies.
His party has selected the former mayor to run for president in elections scheduled for 2028. According to current legislation, Erdogan cannot run again, but the president is already moving to circumvent the country’s rules.
In May, he appointed a team of legal experts to draft a new constitution. This measure would open a legal path for him to remain in office after the end of his current term. Erdogan has been in power for 22 years, first as prime minister and then as president since 2014.
He says the current charter, written after the 1980 military coup, is outdated and still carries vestiges of authoritarianism.
His party and its nationalist allies do not have the necessary votes in parliament to approve a new constitution on their own. Analysts estimate that recent progress in peace negotiations with the PKK and the disarmament of the group could be part of a strategy to garner support from pro-Kurdish parties for the new constitutional text.
Imamoglu, now in detention, was considered a leader with sufficient political capital to motivate rejection of constitutional reform by some sectors.
Türkiye has been a parliamentary democracy since its establishment in 1923, but Erdogan changed that in 2017, adopting the presidential system to his advantage.
As a result, the president is the head of state and exercises executive power, with the possibility of two consecutive five-year terms. The position of Prime Minister was abolished.
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