The mayor of the Turkish metropolis will be the best candidate to fight President Erdogan and his authoritarian regime
Istanbul lives between two continents, two seas and many other ways of seeing the world. The sixteen million inhabitants of the largest European city look at the Bosphorus with the same pride, but from different and even contradictory ideologies. The thinking of the secularists and Europeans is fundamentally different from that of the most conservative and fervent Muslims, hostile to Brussels, although both can display pure nationalism. Ekrem Imamoglu is the mayor of them all, but his position hangs by a thread. He has been sentenced to two years and seven months in prison, a sentence that carries political disqualification, although he can appeal the sentence.
As in the rest of Turkey, social disparities have widened over the past decade. The almighty President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so far had no rival of his stature. But that can change. Imamoglu’s ability to attract the masses of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) heralds the appearance of a prominent foe. Now it seems the regime has created its own beast. The councilor of the intercontinental metropolis is running as the most likely candidate of the anti-government alliance, consisting of half a dozen formations, in the nomination with the polls that will take place next year.
Never has an insult from so low a depth caused so much resonance. In the last municipal elections, the head of state felt the loss of Istanbul and Ankara, the capital, was a devastating defeat and claimed irregularities. The Electoral Commission ordered a repeat of the big city vote. The new call only served to cement the victory of Ekrem Imamoglu, the CHP candidate. Had he gained only an advantage of 13,000 votes on the first occasion, on the second his difference reached 750,000 votes. A star was born.
Dialogue, moderation and a certain populism seem to be the keys to its enormous appeal to a population fed up with tension, corruption and repression, camouflaged under the credit of a ostensibly democratic system. Rising inflation and unemployment have also pushed the party to power. In battle, the government side spared no cheap blows. He labeled him a terrorist, an ally of the United States, while Turkey is a member of NATO, and even tried to humiliate him in the worst way. He called him Greek.
The reinforced winner did not fall into the trap, but described the members of the Commission as “stupid” and on the basis of such an insult began the prosecution. In the manner of a spiral, the defendant reacted to the verdict asking for popular support and a few days ago he was supported by a concentration of thousands of supporters gathered around the town hall. Oddly enough, his case is not strictly original. Erdogan himself, a predecessor in the Istanbul leadership, was also stripped of his mandate for reciting a poem with Islamist depth, a decision that led to his subsequent political rise.
The convict’s profile was already attractive before this legal incident. His personal baggage can attract all sensibilities against the Islamic regime. Born in the northeastern province of Trabzon, the 52-year-old economist was vice president of the Trabzonspor BK basketball team. Member of a conservative and religious family, his surname means son of the Imam and he is a practicing Muslim himself, but defends a secular politics in the old Kemalist way. His father is one of the founders of the Motherland Party, an ultra-nationalist project that led the country before the rise of so-called moderate Islamism.
Inexperience works against you. Imamoglu has barely appeared on the national scene. His positioning in the field of social democracy took place during his university years. He joined the party in 2008 and has been sticking to local politics ever since, demonstrating great political strength. With the support of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), with a pro-Kurdish slant, and the Iyi, with a conservative as well as non-denominational orientation, he defeated Binali Yildirim, former prime minister and a trusted man of the president, three years ago . The success ended a quarter of a century of control of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the city.
The future of the mayor is unknown, although it will inevitably have an impact on the Turkish public scene. On other occasions when councilors have been impeached by justice, the executive has rushed to appoint administrators, but this time we are talking about the country’s largest city and this maneuver could spark a large-scale outbreak.
His elevation is also causing significant tension in the opposition ruling elite. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the social-democratic party CHP, will be the scapegoat as the eligibility of his candidacy is questioned in the next presidential election.
But there is more, there is even a Machiavellian twist in the strategy against Imamoglu. And it is that Imamoglu’s progression has influenced another. Mansur Yavas, mayor of Ankara, is the other major victim. In 2021, he won the prize for the best council member in the world for a strategy that combined social and environmental measures with ambitious initiatives such as the launch of the largest trade fair in the world. His previously safe bet is now up for debate in favor of Erdogan and the AKP. Although the president should be afraid of the martyr in Istanbul. There is a belief in Turkey that whoever dominates the metropolis will dominate the land between two continents.
Source: La Verdad
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