From his prison cell in March 2025, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu sent a message to New York’s new mayor: “Congratulations, Mamdani! You have achieved a historic victory with the largest turnout since 1969. The municipality’s social power, inclusion, solidarity, and pro-people leadership have been demonstrated once again. A new politics is possible.”
Some time before Imamoglu’s message, Mamdani celebrated his victory with a rousing speech directed in part at Donald Trump: “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city in which he was born. If there is any way to terrorize a tyrant, it is by dismantling the conditions that have allowed him to accumulate power.”
He added: “This is how we’ll stop not just Trump, but the next Trump. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching this, I have three words for you: Turn up the volume.”
From prison to stardom
Imamoglu knows what Mamdani is talking about. After 25 years of absolute dominance by Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), over the country’s economic engine and largest city (accounting for 30.4% of Turkey’s GDP), Imamoglu achieved victory in 2019 in Istanbul. In a highly questionable maneuver, the authorities ordered a rerun of the elections, but far from regaining the mayorship for Erdogan, Imamoglu doubled his lead from 14,000 to 800,000 votes. In 2024, he won the municipal elections again against the presidential candidate.
In February this year, after becoming the main opposition figure at the national level, İmamoğlu announced his candidacy in the 2028 presidential elections (Erdogan has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2003). Then came his arrest and accusation of corruption, terrorism, and even espionage.
Erdogan himself shaped his rise to power from the mayor of Istanbul. In 1999, the city’s young mayor surrenders to prison surrounded by his followers after being found guilty of reciting a religious poem deemed dangerous by the secular elite that has been running the country for decades. “In 1999, the Turkish political system created its own hero by imprisoning Erdogan on trumped-up charges,” analyst Soner Cagaptay wrote at the time. “He took over as mayor, but emerged as a political star. Imamoglu’s arrest will have the same effect on his brand and catapult him into stardom.”
Zulfo Livanelli: “I was the one who encouraged him to introduce himself”
A few weeks ago I spoke with Zelfo Livanelli, one of Türkiye’s leading intellectuals. He came to Spain, but before that he passed through Silivri prison, one of the largest prisons in the world that has become a symbol of Erdogan’s tyranny. There he visited Imamoglu: “I was the one who encouraged him to run for mayor because Istanbul is very important. If you win Istanbul you will later become prime minister or president, so I convinced him.”
In 2002, when Erdogan’s party came to power, Turkey had about 60,000 prisoners. Now it probably exceeds 350,000. According to the latest Council of Europe report, the number of prisoners in Türkiye is almost equal to the number of prisoners in the other 45 member states combined. Silivri, which was built with a capacity of 11,000 people, housed, at last count, 22,000 people. It is one of the largest prisons in the world, and has been converted into a small city with an area of one million square metres.
“It’s like a big concentration camp. I saw other friends who were a little disappointed, like Osman Kavala (the European Court of Human Rights demanded his release in two rulings), but Imamoglu acts like a leader. He tries to organize things and wants to give people hope. It’s a big struggle,” Levanelli told me.
I was the one who encouraged him to run for mayor because Istanbul is very important. If you get Istanbul you will become prime minister or president, so I convinced him
Zulfo Livanelli
Livanelli was a representative of the same party as Imamoglu, but he resigned due to his nationalist drift. The formation is inherited from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the country, and mixes nationalism, social democracy, and defense of secularism.
The musician and writer, a national leader of the left, speaks frequently with Imamoglu and the party president. “I am like their big brother. They ask me for my opinion and I tell them that they have to solve their identity problem. They have to become a social democratic party like other parties in the world.”
The writer was also arrested and imprisoned after the military coup in 1971, and upon leaving, he realized that his songs had become protest anthems against the army. “There was a big leftist movement in Türkiye, but it no longer exists,” he says. Not only did his songs become a symbol of the progressive struggle, but Livanelli brought the poems of García Lorca, his “hero,” to the Turks through his songs. Among them is “Song of the Rider”, also performed by Paco Ibáñez in Spain.
Back to the municipality and its authority: In southeastern Turkey, where the majority are Kurdish, the Turkish government has removed pro-Kurdish mayors for a decade to appoint like-minded managers. In 2014, they won 102 municipal positions and the government ended up appointing directors for 95 of them, leaving only seven mayors from the pro-Kurdish party. In 2019, the process was repeated: out of 65 mayors, only four finished. After the 2024 elections, Erdogan is using his evidence again in a clear suspension of democratic will.
The politics start there, and those at the top are afraid.
You should read…
This is an ugly one, but since I’ve already recommended you read Livanelli’s latest book, On the Tiger’s Back — a fascinating novel about the exile of the last great Ottoman sultan, Abdul Hamid II — I’ll give you another Turkish read (you already know it’s my weakness): You’ll Feel Turkey’s Breath on the Back of Your Neck: Kidnappings, Espionage, and Dirty War in Erdogan’s Country, which she published last year with the publisher Peninsula (the donkey is in the front so he won’t be afraid). It is the result of years of reporting on Türkiye, dozens of interviews and stories that could be straight out of a spy novel. I hope you like it if you read it, I’d love to hear what you think.
Thank you so much for coming this far.
See you next week!
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