Arrested Erdogan rival wins presidential nomination
Arrested Erdogan rival wins presidential nomination
Ekrem Imamoglu, the jailed former mayor of Istanbul and potential rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has secured the opposition party’s presidential nomination for the 2028 election, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) announced on Sunday.
CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel said nearly 15 million people voted in the party’s primaries in support of Imamoglu’s candidacy, despite his arrest earlier this week.
“The number of votes Mr. Ekrem Imamoglu received from our members and the solidarity ballot box is over 14.8 million,” Ozel said at a rally in Istanbul.
The vote came just hours after Imamoglu was formally arrested and suspended from office. He was detained on Wednesday in a sweeping corruption probe and now faces charges of extortion, bribery, and alleged ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Türkiye designates a terrorist group. Imamoglu has denied all wrongdoing.
The CHP has denounced Imamoglu’s arrest as a “coup attempt,” alleging that the charges are aimed at eliminating Erdogan’s top challenger ahead of the next election. The party organized internal primaries nationwide to gauge party support for Imamoglu, but also invited the general public to take part through “solidarity boxes.” Ozel said the voting hours had to be extended and more ballots printed due to the overwhelming turnout.
“You saw it. There were not enough ballots to vote, not enough envelopes to put them in, not enough hours to vote,” he said, calling the turnout “the strongest response” to what the party described as a politically motivated prosecution.
Ozel declared Imamoglu’s nomination official and urged Erdogan to call early elections, claiming Sunday’s vote “questioned [Erdogan’s] legitimacy.” He insisted that “early presidential elections are now inevitable.”
A party spokesman confirmed to AFP on Monday that Imamoglu would be the CHP’s presidential candidate for the 2028 race.
Imamoglu’s arrest has sparked widespread unrest across Türkiye. Mass protests erupted in several major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, with demonstrators clashing with riot police. The authorities have confirmed the arrest of more than 300 people as of Sunday morning. Videos posted online show police using water cannons, pepper spray, and rubber bullets to disperse crowds.
