Just days before Turkey’s main opposition party was set to select its next presidential candidate, the leading contender, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested and jailed, effectively removing him from the race. In this brazen act of political suppression, the Turkish government has taken a momentous step toward full-fledged autocracy.
The scheme to take Imamoglu out of play was calculated and thorough. On Tuesday, Imamoglu’s alma mater, Istanbul University, revoked his diploma—by law, Turkish presidential candidates must possess university degrees—citing alleged violations of Higher Education Board regulations. The next day, Imamoglu was arrested on charges of corruption and terrorism. These court rulings not only derail his presidential ambitions but also oust him from his position as mayor of Turkey’s largest city and economic powerhouse.
For years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been removing checks on his own power and manipulating state institutions to give his party electoral advantages, but until now, the Turkish opposition has been able to field viable candidates to contest his rule. In Imamoglu, opposition groups thought they had found a candidate who could finally defeat Erdogan in a head-to-head race. By forcing the Istanbul mayor out of politics, the government has crossed the line that separates Turkey’s competitive authoritarian system from a full, Russian-style autocracy in which the president handpicks his opponents and elections are purely for show.
Photo by Ugur Yildirim/ dia images via Getty Images
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