Istanbul mayor sentenced to jail and disqualified for "insults"

The Social Democrat mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was sentenced on Wednesday to two years and seven months in jail and politically disqualified for insulting the Election Commission, a sentence the opposition denounces as a move to eliminate a potential rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2023 elections. 

The judges found that the mayor insulted senior officials by saying in November 2019 that "they are stupid who annulled the March elections", a reference to his first victory at the polls that year, challenged by the ruling AKP party for the slim margin he won and annulled by the election commission. İmamoğlu, a member of the CHP party, the largest opposition party, won with a much larger lead when the election was rerun in June of the same year.  

The case will be appealed to a higher court, but it is uncertain whether the government will allow İmamoğlu to remain in office until a final judgement is issued or remove him immediately. In similar conviction cases against mayors of the leftist HDP party in the southeastern Kurdish regions of the country, the Interior Ministry has immediately appointed an administrator to take over the mayor's duties. 

İmamoğlu's defence stresses that the mayor's phrase was not directed at the Election Commission, but was a direct response to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who on the same day had called "stupid" those who "go to the European Parliament to complain about Turkey", in reference to İmamoğlu.

As the trial session unfolded on Wednesday morning, the still-mayor called on Twitter for his supporters to rally in front of Istanbul City Hall, where protests were held after his first election win was annulled. "Saraçhane is the home of 16 million Istanbulis. The will of Istanbul and Turkey will prevail today as it did before. Whatever the ruling, I invite everyone to go to Saraçhane, whether to celebrate, whether to show our will," tweeted İmamoğlu. 

A large crowd has already gathered in the square, including Meral Aksener, leader of the nationalist IYI party, the CHP's coalition partner, while the leader of the social democratic party is currently flying back from Germany to join the protests. 

CHP deputy chairman Sezgin Tanrikulu interpreted the sentence as a political attempt by the government to prevent İmamoğlu's participation in politics. "The court has imposed the maximum sentence, more than two years, so that the sentence cannot be commuted to a fine and so that it also entails political disqualification. Normally a final sentence takes more than a year. Let's see how long it takes this time," Tanrikulu said. 

Today's disqualification of Istanbul's social democratic mayor rules him out in principle as a candidate to end President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's two decades in power next year, but may further elevate his role as a symbol and cohesion of the opposition.

İmamoğlu, until then little more than a municipal official for the social-democratic CHP, the largest opposition party, won the March 2019 municipal elections by a margin of 13,000 votes in a city of 16 million people, ending a quarter-century of mayors from Erdoğan's Islamist AKP party. 

After the AKP challenged the result and the election was rerun, İmamoğlu won by a much larger margin and was soon in the running to challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2023 elections. Precisely because of this, the opposition believes, the prosecution charged him in order to expel him from the political game through a conviction, confirmed on Wednesday, which, apart from prison, includes disqualification from political office, which will prevent him from standing in the presidential elections in June next year. 

The conviction of İmamoğlu, denounced by the opposition as an obvious government manoeuvre to remove a potential electoral competitor to Erdoğan, may galvanise the opposition and even drive many AKP supporters who demand fair play in democracy away from the polls. The loss of the Bosphorus city in 2019 was a painful failure for the AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, because Erdoğan had started his political career as the city's mayor. 

İmamoğlu, 52, a native of the Black Sea coastal province of Trebisonda, served for five years as mayor of Beylikdüzü, a district on the western outskirts of Istanbul. The politician adheres to his party's secular vision, but makes no secret of the fact that he comes from a conservative family, can read the Qur'an and often goes to mosque on Fridays, which endears him to religious sectors that usually vote AKP.

He thus shares certain traits with Erdoğan, who also comes from a conservative Black Sea family, but unlike him, İmamoğlu studied economics at the prestigious Istanbul University, where he graduated before going to work for his family's construction company. 

His inclusive discourse soon drew criticism from his own camp, which blames him for lacking a clear ideological foundation, with a kind of populism not so different from Erdoğan's, and there are left-wing voters who fear that as president he would be little more than a remake of the incumbent. Although the opposition coalition, comprising the CHP, the nationalist IYI party and four smaller formations, has not yet announced its presidential candidate, all indications are that it will be CHP chief Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.  

Regarding a candidacy of his party colleague and hypothetical internal rival, Kılıçdaroğlu has only said that he is doing an excellent job as mayor of Istanbul and should remain in office, which would exclude taking on a national candidacy.