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Spectators greeted Ekrem İmamoğlu with a standing ovation as Istanbul’s deposed mayor entered a courtroom on Monday for what critics say is a politically motivated trial to stop him from challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Turkey’s leading opposition politician faces a swath of corruption charges that carry a potential sentence of more than 2,000 years.
The indictment, which runs to almost 4,000 pages, accuses İmamoğlu, 54, of running a criminal organisation like “an octopus”. He denies all wrongdoing.
The trial got off to a chaotic start when the presiding judge refused İmamoğlu’s request to speak and momentarily adjourned the trial, drawing cries of “Shame!” from the gallery.
His arrest in March 2025, days after the country’s main opposition party nominated İmamoğlu as its presidential candidate, triggered a financial panic that forced the central bank to jack up interest rates and spend billions of dollars to support the lira currency.
İmamoğlu’s Republican People’s Party, or CHP, argues that the charges against him and more than 400 co-defendants are spurious. The trial could last months or possibly even years, analysts said.
“The whole matter is about Erdoğan’s fear of İmamoğlu,” CHP chair Özgür Özel told supporters at a rally last week.
Turkey’s next presidential election is due in 2028 but can be brought forward. Erdoğan, who has governed Nato member Turkey for more than two decades, is widely expected to seek a third presidential term, which would exceed the two terms currently allowed by the constitution.
Most polls suggest the CHP would narrowly beat Erdoğan’s governing Justice & Development Party (AKP) if an election was held today.
İmamoğlu’s trial has been widely denounced by rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which have condemned the government’s weaponisation ofTurkey’s justice system against its political opponents.
“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that prosecutors are trying to remove İmamoğlu from politics and discredit his party in ways that undermine democracy . . . the democratic process in Turkey has never looked at greater risk,” Benjamin Ward, of Human Rights Watch, said.
However, the country’s democratic backsliding has drawn little criticism from western capitals — in large part due to Turkey’s strategic importance as a bulwark against Russia revanchism and Middle East instability. Its military is also Nato’s second-biggest army after the US.
The CHP has faced a prolonged legal crackdown since it won a resounding victory in March 2024 local elections against Erdogan’s AKP. More than a dozen other CHP mayors are currently behind bars.
As well as facing what Turkey’s chief prosecutor’s office has described as the country’s biggest-ever corruption case, İmamoğlu faces a separate lawsuit that challenges the validity of his university degree, which is a constitutional requirement for presidential candidates.
The CHP also faces a series of challenges over its party leadership election results.
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