A Mayor Setback

Issue #251

Those looking for a treat between democratic crises are advised to watch this baklava factory video. The first two minutes are reel ASMR.

In this week’s recap:

• İmamoğlu arrested, protests challenged

• Why Gen Z is leading the movement

• Investigation hits Ankara municipality

• Erdoğan jumps over Newroz fire

• Devlet Bahçeli is MIA

Also from us this week:

• Selim Koru and Diego Cupolo had a live video chat

• Nate Schenkkan on the end of competitive authoritarianism in Turkey

• Paul Benjamin Osterlund on what’s driving street protests in İstanbul

• Tomorrow, Azra Ceylan will cover the economic impacts of protests and boycotts

• And subscribe to Meclis recap for news on the omnibus bill in parliament​

Ankara voters cast ballots for İmamoğlu in Sunday’s primary. © CHP

​One week and about 1,500 detentions later, Turkey’s protesters face their biggest hurdle to date: Ramazan Bayramı.

Also known as Eid al-Fitr or the Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan, Erdoğan Wednesday declared a nine-day school break that could send many university students back home to their families, a-resting protesters in a different way.

With the holiday slated to end April 7, what happens between now and then poses significant challenges for Turkey’s opposition party as it seeks to continue organizing citizens to protest, boycott and, generally, denounce the government’s arrest of democratically-elected İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.

As recap readers know, İmamoğlu was arrested Sunday on corruption charges along with CHP’s Beylikdüzü mayor and 43 associates, in what his party defines as a politically motivated case.

While currently imprisoned in Silivri, İmamoğlu has not been jailed on a separate terrorism-related investigation (for now), which led to the arrest of the CHP Şişli mayor. Judicial process details here. There are many gray zones, but the common narrative is that terrorism charges allow the state to appoint a trustee or kayyım to replace elected officials.

With that logic, the Interior Ministry Sunday appointed a trustee to Şişli, but not to the İstanbul Municipal Municipality, which instead held an election Wednesday to choose a caretaker mayor.

Enter Nuri Aslan. Elected with 177 of 314 votes in the İstanbul council, Aslan will serve as interim mayor as İmamoğlu awaits trial. Here’s Aslan’s profile.

He will be a new player in a political and information landscape that is heavily titled in the government’s favor. Apart from ramping up investigations on CHP figures, the state has used aligned mainstream media channels to shape narratives, while getting social media companies to suspend opposition accounts, including Bianet’s X account, in Turkey.

Seven journalists were also temporarily arrested for covering protests, which have been generally peaceful, but deeply violent in specific places and times.

“Erdoğan is on a bike,” a Yeni Yol Party source told Turkey recap this week. “He has to keep going in the same direction or he will fall. That’s why we see escalation.”

The source said he expects İmamoğlu to remain in jail long-term, and described the current crackdown on Turkey’s opposition as “July 15, but Baath party style”, referring to post-2016 coup attempt purges and the hardline tactics used by Syria’s Baath party – a sentiment, perhaps, best expressed by this Reddit meme?

Meanwhile, Erdoğan spent 25 minutes bashing the CHP in his address to AKP members Wednesday. He framed the protests as a “show” and the allegations of a politicalized judiciary as offensive to Turkish rule of law, claiming it was CHP members who tipped off authorities on the alleged corruption in İstanbul’s municipalities.

Throughout, EU bodies are expressing concern, though not so much the Trump admin. Multiple reports highlighted that tumult in Turkish domestic politics remains less important than regional security for EU states.

“We cannot risk losing Turkey right now,” a Brussels-based policymaker told Turkey recap.

That leaves Turkey’s future mostly in the hands of Turkish citizens, which as analyst Selim Koru noted in our live chat, is not necessarily bad. Koru underlined that 15 million people voted for İmamoğlu in the CHP’s primary Sunday, far more than the party’s 1.7 million registered members, pointing to a significant pro-democracy movement in Turkey.

“That's a huge number of the electorate,” Koru said. “That really showed the Erdoğan palace, I think, that they're dealing with something nationwide and that this is pretty big and that the CHP was leading this thing. I don't think they were prepared for something like that.”

“I think the regime, the real people who are planning it, were really banking on some apathy,” he added. “They thought, okay, people are just going to be cynical … They're not going to fight. [But] especially from young people, there was a huge willingness to fight for a representative government.”

Next: CHP chair Özgür Özel has called a rally in Maltepe Saturday, which might serve to further mobilization efforts. He continues to lead a boycott against government-friendly companies, which Azra Ceyaln will detail in tomorrow’s Economy recap.

And the CHP plans to hold an extraordinary congress on April 6 in an effort to sidestep a potential investigation on alleged irregularities during its 2023 congress. If the probe advances, CHP members have expressed fears that authorities could appoint a trustee to run their party.

At the same time, our parliamentary sources expect trustee appointments to İstanbul municipality-affiliated companies. Top targets include Medya A.Ş. and Kültür A.Ş.

Translation: “Resist with determination. Gezi is our honor”. © Turkey recap

To come of rage: Gen Z, ‘the kids of çapulcus’, have grown up