Murat Yetkin: Imamoğlu imprisoned but Erdoğan did not win; 15 million votes

İmamoğlu is in Prison, but This is No Victory for Erdoğan

By imprisoning CHP’s presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, the final—though not the last—obstacle to his candidacy against President Tayyip Erdoğan has been put in place. However, it would be wrong to call this a victory for Erdoğan. "What you think you have destroyed today may rise to power tomorrow." Historian İlber Ortaylı’s words regarding the Ekrem İmamoğlu case summarize the situation perfectly. On the day İmamoğlu was placed in Silivri Prison, a symbol of judicial operations and political pressure under the AK Party era, nearly 15 million citizens protested the move by contributing to “solidarity funds” set up by the CHP. Only one-tenth of them were CHP members. The government-controlled media refused to report on the millions of protesters who took to the streets across Turkey, defying bans imposed by the Ministry of the Interior, police batons, tear gas, water cannons, and arrests—especially in Saraçhane Square, where the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) headquarters is located. The 15 million voluntary votes against Erdoğan were also deemed unnewsworthy. The few opposition TV channels that broadcast the protests live were threatened with closure by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) and forced to stop. But how long can you keep the truth hidden?

Erdoğan’s "İmamoğlu Allergy"

In a way, İmamoğlu is the secular and Atatürkist mirror image of Erdoğan.

• He is also from the Black Sea region.
• He connects well with people.
• He is charismatic.
• He is a skilled speaker.
• He has strong ties with the business world.

In other words, he is a dangerous rival for Erdoğan. The AK Party–MHP People’s Alliance wants President Tayyip Erdoğan to be re-elected again and again. But they face two obstacles:

1. A Constitutional barrier – They do not have enough votes to secure 360 out of 600 seats in Parliament. They are now trying to close this gap by aligning with the DEM Party, which they previously labeled as terrorists and wanted to shut down.
2. Even if they succeed in that, they still do not want İmamoğlu to run against Erdoğan.

İmamoğlu has defeated Erdoğan’s AK Party three times in Istanbul, a global city of 16 million people:

• March 2019 local elections
• The rerun election in June 2019 (after AK Party and MHP objected)
• March 2024 local elections

The "Kurdish Vote" Issue

İmamoğlu’s ability to connect with Kurdish voters has further irritated Erdoğan politically. During the 2024 election process, İmamoğlu included Kurdish politicians on his municipal council candidate lists in Istanbul’s 39 districts. This is now being used as the basis for a terrorism investigation against him. The court that imprisoned İmamoğlu over corruption charges refused to also imprison him on terrorism charges, prompting an appeal by the prosecution—indicating that the real issue at hand is the Kurdish question. The contradiction here is striking:

• On one hand, the government is engaging in indirect talks with the PKK through the DEM Party and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), trying to get them to lay down their arms.
• On the other hand, while police were attacking İmamoğlu’s supporters with batons and tear gas in Saraçhane on March 23, a massive Nevruz celebration by the DEM Party with hundreds of thousands of people was taking place just a short walk away in Yenikapı Square.

Meanwhile, CHP's other major presidential candidate, Mansur Yavaş, caused tensions with the DEM Party over remarks he made about the Nevruz celebrations in his Saraçhane speech supporting İmamoğlu. This forced CHP leader Özgür Özel to step in and mend relations. At the heart of the issue was the Kurdish question.

Özel and the 15 Million Against Erdoğan

Even Hürriyet’s pro-government political columnist Abdülkadir Selvi, who had been relentlessly scrutinizing İmamoğlu for months, wrote that the biggest loser of the March 18–23 operation was İmamoğlu—but did not declare Erdoğan the winner. Instead, he wrote that the real winner was Özgür Özel. Özel managed the crisis well. As soon as İmamoğlu was detained on March 19, Özel rushed to Istanbul and practically turned the İBB building into a second CHP headquarters. Despite government bans, he:

• Organized protests, calling people to the streets.
• Ensured that the demonstrations remained focused on their goal—despite the fact that not only CHP members were protesting.
• Delivered powerful, two-hour-long unscripted speeches, reminiscent of his earlier years in Parliament.

Özel’s two major moves that disrupted the government’s plans were:

1. On March 23, he allowed non-CHP members to vote in a second ballot during the CHP primary, ensuring mass solidarity for İmamoğlu and revealing a spontaneous 15 million-strong opposition against Erdoğan.
2. To prevent government intervention, he announced an extraordinary CHP congress on April 6 to preemptively block efforts to annul the primary or previous party congress decisions through a government-appointed trustee.

With this, he proved his leadership.

Did Erdoğan Fall Into Someone Else’s Trap?

Was the March 18–25 operation to eliminate İmamoğlu from the race actually Erdoğan’s own plan? Erdoğan is an experienced politician. How did he think a strategy that ignored public reaction and voting power would succeed? We saw a similar miscalculation during the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. The Fethullahists had failed to anticipate that people from all walks of life would take to the streets to resist a military coup. The İmamoğlu case has now shattered two long-standing fears among opposition supporters:

1. The fear of Silivri Prison, a remnant from the FETÖ era.
2. The fear of taking to the streets, a remnant from the 2013 Gezi protests crackdown.

There’s another possibility:

• Certain figures within the AK Party, Beştepe (the Presidential Palace), or the MHP might have convinced Erdoğan that this was the perfect time to act, arguing that “The U.S. and the EU are too focused on Ukraine to interfere”.
• They may have told him that MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli would support the PKK peace process—but that if the plan backfired, they could blame CHP.

If that’s the case, why did Erdoğan accept a strategy so different from his usual political playbook? In the end, İmamoğlu is in prison, but we cannot call this a victory for Erdoğan.