Turkey detains three more opposition mayors amid bribery probe

Turkey detained three more opposition mayors early Saturday as part of a probe into alleged bribery, according to officials from the major opposition CHP, who described it as a “political operation”.

The early morning arrests were the latest measure against Republican People’s Party (CHP) elected officials as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration increases pressure on the party, which scored a massive victory over his AKP in the 2024 local elections and is climbing in the polls.

They were tied to an investigation into suspected fraud that ended in the March ouster of Istanbul’s prominent opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, whose arrest provoked widespread protests in Turkey’s worst street turmoil since 2013.

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Imamoglu is Erdogan’s biggest political rival and the CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential race.

Earlier this week, police arrested 137 people as part of a probe into alleged graft in the opposition stronghold of Izmir, Turkey’s third city. They were still seeking others under a prosecutors’ arrest warrant that named 157 people.

The latest detainees were based in southern Turkey: mayor of the southern city of Adana, Zeydan Karalar, mayor of the resort town of Antalya, Muhittin Bocek, and the mayor of Adiyaman in the southeast, Abdurrahman Tutdere.

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As he was being led away to a police car, a journalist asked Karalar why he was being arrested.

“Where there is an influential journalist or politician, they silence them,” he replied.

“In a system where the law bends and sways according to politics, where justice is applied for one group and ignored for another, no one should expect us to trust in the rule of law or believe in justice,” wrote Mansur Yavas on X, opposition mayor of Ankara, Turkey’s capital.

“We will not bow to injustice, lawlessness, or political operations.”

The pro-Kurdish DEM party, the third largest in Turkey’s parliament, also denounced the arrests in a strongly-worded statement.

‘Stop persecuting elected officials’

“This persecution of elected officials must stop,” wrote DEM co-president Tulay Hatimogullari on X.

“Not respecting the decisions of the people at the ballot box and not recognising the will of the people is causing deep rifts,” she wrote.

“These operations are not a solution, but block the road to a democratic Turkey.”

DEM has in recent months been working closely with Erdogan’s government to facilitate moves to end the decades-long conflict with the Kurds, facilitating talks which in May saw Kurdish PKK militants ending their bloody armed struggle in a conflict that cost nearly 40,000 lives.

Saturday’s arrests were the latest in a slew of legal manoeuvres targeting the CHP.

On Monday, an Ankara court began hearing a case against the party involving allegations of vote-buying at its 2023 leadership primary which could end up overturning the election of CHP’s popular leader Ozgur Ozel, who rose to prominence for his role in leading the March protests.

Anadolu news agency said the Adana and Adiyaman mayors were linked to a case opened by the Istanbul public prosecutors office into alleged tender rigging and bribery.

Police also arrested the deputy mayor of Istanbul’s Buyukcekmece district Ahmet Sahin as part of the same probe, BirGun news website said.

Antalya’s mayor was held over a separate investigation launched by the resort town’s chief public prosecutor into allegations of bribery, with police also arresting his son, it said.