Türkiye: Erdoğan locks up his opponent and seals his authoritarian drift

The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, was arrested on Sunday 23 March on charges of ‘corruption’ and dismissed from his post. Through his lawyers, he denounced political manipulation and an ‘execution without trial’. Ekrem Imamoglu is very popular, even beyond the walls of his home town, and is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main rival. Erdoğan seems to be taking advantage of a favourable context – with the announcement of the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the end of the war in Syria and Türkiye’s position of strength in the global geopolitical context – to tip his regime from a façade of democracy to an assumed autocracy. This is what the tens of thousands of Turks, led by young people, who have been demonstrating across the country since the start of the week fear. This protest movement, unprecedented since the protests of 2013, was immediately met with fierce repression. Demonstrations have been banned in Türkiye’s three largest cities, more than 1,200 people have been arrested, and the regime is restricting social networks and media coverage of the movement. This latest step in Erdoğan’s drift towards authoritarianism is an embarrassment for European countries.

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