Earlier this month, the mayor of Istanbul and the man who many saw as the primary challenger to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was arrested and charged with corruption and other offences just days before he was due to be selected as the opposition’s 2028 presidential candidate.
Authorities quickly banned protests, and streets were closed, but hundreds of thousands of Turks nevertheless still came out to voice their anger at what was widely viewed as a watershed moment in the country’s democracy. More than 1,000 people were arrested, including journalists. One foreign journalist—a reporter from the BBC—has been deported for lacking appropriate accreditation.
It followed the arrest of 54-year-old Ekrem İmamoğlu—a leading new generation politician in Türkiye who rose to fame in 2014 when he became the mayor of Beylikdüzü, a district of Istanbul. Until then, his name was not widely known outside the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
In 2019, he defeated the ruling AK Party (AKP) not once but twice to become the CHP’s metropolitan mayor of Istanbul, home to 16 million people. It was in this role that he became a central figure in Turkish politics—his popularity rising ever since.
İmamoğlu comes from a political family. His father was involved in the centre-right ANAP, founded in the 1980s in opposition to the party being propped up by the military. Dilek Kaya—who İmamoğlu married in 1995—is said to have considerably influenced his views.
Leader in the making
Born on 4 June 1970 in Akçaabat district of Trabzon on the Black Sea coast, İmamoğlu studied business at Istanbul University and spent a year in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus before graduating (three decades later, the university to cancelled his diploma, citing “irregularities”).
After university, he worked in construction for the family company. Friends say he was partly drawn to politics to make public services more efficient, something he complained about when he was a businessman.
In 2008, İmamoğlu joined the CHP and served as the party’s district chairman of Beylikdüzü—a district of Istanbul with a population of around 415,000. In 2014, he won a mayoral election with more than 50% of the vote, winning it back from AKP.
He performed well in Beylikdüzü, completing major projects, including the 1.2-million-square-metre Valley of Life, with a 7km walking track and 16km cycle path. He also invested in infrastructure and culture, opening various new centres.
As CHP candidate for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality elections in 2019, he proved popular both in the CHP and among the city residents who normally voted for other parties. Analysts cite his ability to connect with people.
In the elections, which were held on 31 March 2019, he beat his AKP rival Binali Yıldırım—a former Turkish prime minister and close confidant of Erdoğan. AKP objected, and the Supreme Election Board cancelled the elections. New elections were held in June 2019, and İmamoğlu won again, increasing his share of the vote to 54.22%.
It was a humiliating defeat for the AKP. To the cameras, İmamoğlu said: “The clock of democracy did not work on the evening of 31 March, but the facts cannot be hidden by covering them up, and today, in addition to the ballot papers, the will of the people came out of the ballot boxes.”
