CHP head Özgür Özel speaks in defence of arrested mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul metropolis corridor, 19 March 2025
Burak Kara · Getty
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faces a troublesome selection: ought to he attain out to his political opponents or maintain persecuting them? In latest months, he has favoured persecution. On 19 March Istanbul’s extremely common mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was arrested on corruption and terrorism expenses. The courts had already annulled his college diploma, awarded 30 years in the past. Under constitutional guidelines, this meant he couldn’t run within the May 2023 presidential election. His imprisonment sparked nationwide protests, which have been brutally suppressed, each in main CHP-run cities and concrete centres historically loyal to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
But Erdoğan additionally has an eye fixed on the 2028 presidential election, and the important thing impediment to a reelection bid — the constitutional restrict of two consecutive presidential phrases — could power him to rein in his authoritarian impulses. Erdoğan, who was elected by direct common suffrage in 2014 (a primary in Turkey), was reelected in 2018 underneath the newly adopted presidential system; he argued that the constitutional reform reset the clock, and he gained once more in 2023. For him to run but once more, the structure would should be amended by a vote in Turkey’s parliament, the Grand National Assembly.
One pathway to constitutional modification is to safe the backing of three fifths of the meeting — 360 deputies. But within the 2023 parliamentary election (which coincided with the presidential vote), the AKP misplaced floor, successful solely 267 of the meeting’s 600 seats, whereas its far-right ally, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), took simply 50. Added collectively, these depart Erdoğan nonetheless properly wanting the 360 backers he wants. And in any case, on this situation, additional ratification by referendum is obligatory. With double-digit inflation (33.52% in July), three consecutive years of forex depreciation (2022-24), and repressive measures which have provoked sturdy opposition, placing such a change (…)
Full article: 1 910 phrases.
