Turkey’s main opposition calls for early elections amid unrest over arrest of Istanbul’s mayor
The main opposition leader calls for elections to be held at the latest in November as the country is grappling with the most widespread unrest in a decade.
]IRNA - The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has called for early elections in the wake of the jailing of Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
“We are ready for early presidential elections in June,” Ozgur Ozel said after his reelection as the party chief during the CHP’s congress in the capital, Ankara on Sunday.
He also challenged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that “if he is not prepared to face the people in June, then we are ready for the elections in the first half of November.”
“In November at the latest, you will come to confront our candidate,” he said referring to the CHP's presidential candidate Imamoglu whose detention sparked nationwide protests.
Meanwhile, Ozel promised to hold more demonstrations in support of Imamoglu and in opposition to his arrest and jailing.
“The party will organize a protest in a different city every weekend, plus rallies in a different Istanbul district on Wednesday evenings,” he said during an address to party members and supporters.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already taken to the streets nationwide, especially the commercial hub of Istanbul, to protest the detention of Imamoglu, a CHP member and President Tayyip Erdogan’s chief electoral rival.
Istanbul has seen some of the biggest demonstrations in more than a decade, with protesters assembling in front of the municipality building every evening against what they call “a politically-driven attempt by Erdogan to eliminate his main contender in the next election.”
Protests have been mostly peaceful, but nearly 2,000 people have been detained, around 300 of them remanded in custody pending trial.
Imamoglu was arrested late last month while voters headed to the polls for the CHP primary to name him the candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
Initial reports said that the mayor had been detained for questioning as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links but anger boiled after a court formally ordered him jailed, pending a trial despite Imamoglu’s denial of the charges against him.
Several European leaders and rights groups also called it a politicized and anti-democratic move despite the Turkish government’s assertions that it had no influence over the judiciary and that the country’s courts are independent.
