Erdogan Challenger’s Political Career at Risk After Court Ruling

Selcan Hacaoglu
·4 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Turkey on Wednesday convicted Istanbul’s high-profile mayor of insulting election officials, jeopardizing any potential election bid against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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A court in Istanbul sentenced Ekrem Imamoglu to two years and seven months in prison. If the verdict is upheld by higher appeals courts, it will result in a political ban for Imamoglu, the most popular political figure who can challenge Erdogan in elections scheduled for June.

Until the higher courts’ decision on the verdict, Imamoglu remains the mayor.

The Man Who Ended Erdogan’s Rule in Istanbul Did So With a Smile

Investors sold Turkish assets after the court’s decision, with the benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 index closing 3.6% lower on the day. The lira declined as much as 0.2% against the dollar. Five-year credit default swaps, which measure the cost of insuring against possible default on Turkish debt, rose to 508 basis points, the biggest jump in more than a week.

The spat between the mayor and Turkey’s president goes back to the 2019 local elections, when Imamoglu won Turkey’s largest city in a stunning victory for the main opposition party CHP. Erdogan’s own political ascent had begun in the same city 25 years earlier and he took the electoral loss in Istanbul personally.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council canceled Imamoglu’s first electoral victory amid heavy influence from Erdogan’s aides. The mayor won the repeat vote with a landslide.

The latest court decision will have a similar impact on public sentiment, Imamoglu said.

“The powers given to us by the nation can’t be taken away by a few. God willing, our fight will become more powerful,” Halk TV cited him as saying.

Opposition Rallying

Thousands gathered in front of the municipal building at Istanbul’s Sarachane district shortly after Imamoglu called on his voters to show their opposition to this “great act of lawlessness.” He greeted the festive crowd from the top of a bus and addressed his supporters alongside Meral Aksener, chairwoman of the opposition Iyi Party.

The mayor’s supporters chanted slogans calling for the resignation of the government, and waved Turkish flags.

“This verdict is aimed at preventing Imamoglu from running for president in the elections,” said Nuri Kirik, a 48-year-old man who was among the crowd.

The mayor is accused of insulting members of the election council for comments he made in November 2019, months after he won the vote. He denies wrongdoing and has accused the Turkish president of using “the law as a weapon” against his political opponents.

“Those who canceled the election on March 31 are the fools,” Imamoglu said at the time, in remarks that were viewed by the authorities as an insult against election board judges.

What’s Next

The legal process involving the courts of appeals typically takes years, which means Imamoglu can hold office and compete in elections, according to Cem Kaya, a deputy chairman of Istanbul-based think tank Turkey Justice Research Center.

If Imamoglu’s conviction is upheld after appeal, he will lose his seat and the Istanbul municipality’s city council, dominated by Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, would elect a new mayor.

Erdogan himself lost his seat as the mayor of Istanbul more than two decades ago after he was imprisoned for reciting a poem that courts said incited religious hatred. The Turkish president’s political career got a boost from his imprisonment, catapulting him to the leadership of the newly-established AK Party shortly after he came out of jail.

Imamoglu’s conviction will provide a similar boost to the opposition, Iyi Party’s Aksener said. Turkey’s opposition alliance has yet to announce a joint candidate for the elections scheduled to take place in six months. Heads of all six parties in the opposition bloc will gather on Thursday in Istanbul to show their opposition to the court decision.

Aksener indicated continued support for Imamoglu, who is seen by credible pollsters as having a real shot at defeating Erdogan if he were to run for president. The mayor has refrained from explicitly voicing such ambitions.

Meanwhile, the president is stepping up pressure on the opposition ahead of the vote.

Earlier this year, a top appeals court upheld a jail term of nearly five years for another key CHP figure, Canan Kaftancioglu, on charges of insulting Erdogan. Kaftancioglu was seen as an architect of Imamoglu’s victory in Istanbul.

“Today’s ruling against Imamoglu shows, once again, that Erdogan has plenty of cards he can use to gain the upper hand ahead of the 2023 elections,” said Wolfango Piccoli, the co-president of Teneo Intelligence. “It remains to be seen whether today’s sentence will make Imamoglu more popular,” Piccoli said, pointing to similarities between Imamoglu’s conviction and Erdogan’s imprisonment in the late 1990s.

--With assistance from Beril Akman, Burhan Yuksekkas, Firat Kozok and Tugce Ozsoy.

(Updates with analyst quotes, details from the ninth paragraph.)

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