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Turkish police have detained Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main political challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in an intensifying crackdown against the opposition to the country’s longtime ruler.
State media said İmamoğlu’s detention on Wednesday was part of an investigation into alleged terrorism links, but the opposition described the move as a “coup attempt” and the arrest sent the Turkish currency and markets tumbling.
The opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) had been set to name İmamoğlu, one of the country’s most popular political figures, as its presidential candidate on Sunday ahead of elections due by 2028.
The detention comes a day after the state Istanbul University cancelled İmamoğlu’s higher education degree, which would disqualify him from entering the presidential race if not overturned on appeal.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said the probe into İmamoğlu was linked to possible support from a pro-Kurdish political group for his 2024 mayoral re-election campaign.
People at a rally in Istanbul in support of the city’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu © Ozan Kose/AFP/ Getty Images
While Turkey’s four-decade-long conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party has claimed some 40,000 lives, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy party is the second-biggest opposition group in parliament.
A separate investigation into İmamoğlu is looking at alleged corruption in public tenders.
İmamoğlu, widely considered to be the most serious challenger to Erdoğan’s more than two-decade grip on power, already faces a spate of probes, mostly for political speeches.
His detention came alongside the issue of arrest warrants for a further 99 people, according to Anadolu.
The Turkish lira fell 5 per cent against the dollar and the country’s benchmark Bist 100 index was down almost 7 per cent in early afternoon trading.
Tomasz Wieladek, an analyst at T Rowe Price, described the crackdown as “a wake-up call for everybody”. He added that “assets will probably continue to sell off further”, noting that Turkey’s central bank had limited firepower to defend the currency.
Dilek İmamoğlu, the mayor’s wife, told a television station that police had arrived at their home as they finished a Ramadan pre-dawn meal and that he was taken away at about 7:30am. He is being held at the central Istanbul police station, according to news reports.
“Hundreds of police are at my door,” İmamoğlu said in a voice message shared by his office early on Wednesday. “This immoral and tyrannical approach will undoubtedly be overturned by the will and resilience of our people.”
Following the arrest, a central government appointed official banned demonstrations in Istanbul for four days, while Turkey has also restricted access to social media platforms including X, Instagram and YouTube, global internet monitor NetBlocks reported.
CHP chair Özgür Özel described the arrest as “an attempt at a coup against our next president”.
The party has expressed hopes that naming a presidential candidate so far ahead of the 2028 date for elections will put pressure on parliament to hold the vote sooner.
Fahrettin Altun, Erdoğan’s director of communications, accused the CHP
of “trying to undermine the integrity of the investigations (into İmamoğlu) with political and ideological motives” and warned against “slanderous
allegations” against the president.
Erdoğan, who has towered over Turkish politics since 2002, has steered the nation down an increasingly authoritarian path, particularly after he survived a 2016 coup attempt.
Özgür Özel, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, with Dilek İmamoğlu, wife of the detained Istanbul mayor © Republican People’s Party (CHP) Press Service/AFP/Getty Images
In recent months, his government has embarked on a crackdown targeting politicians from left and right, journalists, academics — even an astrologer who strayed into election predictions — with hundreds of people arrested as the president’s rivals have been hobbled.
The fall in the currency and equity markets underscored investors’ nervousness at a time when Erdoğan has been seeking to reboot the economy and lure foreign investment back to Turkey.
After winning elections in May 2023, Erdoğan reversed years of unorthodox monetary policies, returning Mehmet Şimşek, a former Merrill Lynch banker, to government as finance minister.
Şimşek, who has helped slow inflation to 39 per cent from more than 70 per cent, sought to reassure investors as markets tumbled on Wednesday.
“Everything necessary for the healthy functioning of the markets is being done,” he wrote in a post on X. “The economic programme we are implementing continues with determination.”
The crackdown has taken place as Erdoğan’s allies campaign to change the constitution, which would enable him to run for a third term.
But the popularity of the president’s Justice and Development party (AKP) has been on the wane. In local elections last year, the party suffered its worst defeat since its creation more than 20 years ago, with İmamoğlu winning re-election in Erdoğan’s old stronghold of Istanbul by a margin of more than 11 per cent.
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