New (Old) Crisis in Turkey

Daniel Johnson

Ekrem Imamoğlu had been in the regime’s crosshairs for some time as an electoral threat to the AKP.

IN THE EARLY morning of March 19, 2025, police arrived at the home Ekrem Imamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul and member of the People’s Republican Party (CHP).

Imamoğlu, along with a hundred others, was arrested on charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist organization (the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan, or PKK). As of this writing, Imamoğlu remains in detention in the notorious Sivilri Prison outside of Istanbul.

The arrest was not entirely unexpected. First elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, and reelected to a second term in 2024, Imamoğlu is widely regarded as the primary electoral threat to Tayyip Recep Erdoğan, Turkey’s president and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). He has therefore been in the regime’s crosshairs for some time.

In 2022, for example, Imamoğlu was convicted of insulting Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council (he called the judges “fools” in 2019 after they — foolishly — demanded a rerun of the mayoral election, which Imamoğlu won by an even larger margin the second time around), and sentenced to two years in jail and banned from politics.(1)

It is also no accident that the 2025 arrest occurred just four days before Imamoğlu was to receive the CHP’s endorsement as its candidate for the presidency.

Equally indicative of the political nature of the charges, just prior to his detention, the rector of Istanbul University nullified Imamoğlu’s degree from the school, citing irregularities in his undergraduate transfer from a university in Northern Cyprus. In Turkey, presidential candidates are required to have a university degree.

Political machinations are hardly new in Turkey. What the government did not expect was the scale of the popular reaction to Imamoğlu’s arrest. Demonstrations against the detention outside Istanbul City Hall quickly spread to other provinces.

University and high school students initiated their own protests, with particularly vocal demonstrations on large university campuses. Protests were followed by boycotts of government-aligned companies, especially those with ties to pro-government media.

If the extent of popular reaction was a surprise, the state’s response was predictable. The Istanbul Governor’s Office banned public demonstrations in the city for four days and closed roads and metro lines to the city center.

This strategy was extended to places like the campus of Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, historically known for its leftist politics. X, formerly Twitter and owned by self-professed free speech absolutist Elon Musk, obeyed government orders to suspend accounts belonging to opposition figures.(2)

Though in the past he has frequently encouraged political boycotts, Erdoğan accused those advocating for the boycott of companies with ties to the government of treason. He promised legal prosecution of those promoting the action, while the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the CHP’s boycott calls.

More than 2000 people were detained in the weeks after March 19, including students and several journalists. In April, the prosecution of nearly 200 of those arrested began in Istanbul, with charges including participation in illegal protests and failure to disperse despite warnings.(3)

Context of the Crisis

Young people in Turkey have known no other political rule than that of Erdoğan and the AKP, who have run the country since 2002. After serving two terms as prime minister (2003-2014), in order to remain in power a 2017 referendum converted Turkey from a parliamentary to an executive system of government.

Although he will soon reach his term limit as president, another constitutional change allowing Erdoğan to run yet again is clearly in the works.

Many in Turkey believed change was on the horizon in 2023. With the economy in freefall amidst runaway inflation, polls suggested Erdoğan was vulnerable to electoral defeat for the first time in his political career.

An opposition alliance attempted to unite a broad spectrum from socialist left to secular-nationalist right, with the ostensible aim of restoring parliamentary democracy, clean government and basic political freedoms.

Polls also suggested that within the CHP leadership, both Imamoğlu and Ankara mayor Mansur Yavaş were likely to defeat Erdoğan. Yet the party nominated longtime party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, an uninspiring candidate who ended up soundly losing to Erdoğan by a healthy margin. Erdoğan’s People’s Alliance, consisting of the AKP and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), also retained a majority of seats in parliament.

Though the general elections were disappointing, just ten months later opposition hopes were revived in municipal elections.

In addition to retaining the three largest cities of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, the CHP captured numerous other cities — some of them traditional bastions of pro-AKP conservatism. This was the first nationwide election since 1977 in which the CHP captured the most votes.

The leftist and pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) maintained its strongholds in the east and southeast of the country. In a familiar pattern, however, the central government removed the elected DEM mayors of a number of southeastern cities, replacing them with trustees appointed by the Interior Ministry.

As recently as February 2025, DEM’s Mehmet Alkan was removed as co-mayor of Kağızman and sentenced to six years in prison for alleged PKK ties.(4)

While the removal of elected local officials in Kurdish-majority regions has become a tradition, the use of trustee mayors extended even to the CHP in 2024. Ahmet Özer, mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt district (who happens to be Kurdish), was arrested in a dawn raid in late October, accused of having PKK connections.

For many, the politically-motivated arrest of Imamoğlu was simply the last straw in a years-long process of creeping authoritarianism.

Political scientists have called the government systems of countries like Turkey and Hungary “competitive authoritarianism.” In such systems there are opposition parties and competitive elections are held.

Elections are far from fair, however, as media and other institutions strongly favor the ruling party while democratic structures have been significantly eroded. (Suggestively, a recent survey of 500 political scientists found a majority believing the United States was moving toward some form of authoritarian rule.)(5)

Whether Erdoğan will turn toward a more full-blown one-party authoritarianism in the face of the events of spring 2025 is a frightening possibility — though one that would be met with fierce resistance in the streets.

Beyond Elections

Despite his arrest, Imamoğlu’s nomination as CHP presidential candidate went ahead as planned on March 23. One indication of the extent of anger over his arrest was the nearly 15 million people (in a country of 85 million) who voted in the primary — 13 million of whom voted for Imamoğlu. (There are only 1.7 million members of the party.)(6)

The vote was a symbolic expression of contempt for the state’s blatant violation of basic democratic norms. Importantly, however, many protesters emphasized that their anger went beyond electoral politics. Frustration over problems in education, the healthcare system, and the economy is widespread.

Students, the most visible and vocal group in the protests, demanded democracy on campuses as well as in the national government, often with specific reference to the appointment of trustee university rectors. Though universities have long been hotbeds of radicalism in Turkey, recent political and economic developments contributed significantly to the March explosion of student unrest.

A major purge of academia began in early 2016 with the firing of many signatories of a petition demanding a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict. A failed military coup that summer was followed by the expulsion of 6000 scholars from academia during a state of emergency.

In November, a statutory decree removed universities’ right to elect rectors, revoking a central component of universities’ autonomy that has caused considerable tension on a number of campuses. Istanbul University’s revocation of Imamoğlu’s degree was yet another reminder of the government’s disregard for academic rights and independence.

The centrality of youth to the March demonstrations was also an expression of frustration at the lack of social freedom and a viable economic future.

While Erdoğan once claimed his political mission was to raise a generation of devout Muslims, Turkish young people are less religiously and socially conservative than are older generations (despite an explosion of religious schools under the AKP), and are generally opposed to the government’s policies of censorship and media control.(7)

As important, many see little in the way of economic opportunity or security. Unemployment is disproportionately high among young adults aged 20 to 34; predictably, the same cohort is disproportionately represented among emigrants.

The exodus of young people, especially to Europe, is part of a broader national brain drain, with medical professionals and IT specialists particularly likely to leave the country.(8)

Of course, it is the poor and working classes, who do not have the luxury of leaving, that suffer most in economic crises. While it has long postured as a populist defender of the masses, the AKP government has offered the conventional medicine of neoliberal austerity to address the nation’s economic woes.

In 2024, for example, the government announced a three-year plan to tackle inflation centered on major cuts to public services and the luring back of foreign direct investment, to be overseen by former Merrill Lynch economist Mehmet Şimşek.

Unfortunately, while general economic hardship might conceivably unite disparate social forces, there is at present no organizational structure for a broad progressive alliance. While unions were active in Istanbul after Imamoğlu’s arrest, organized labor was unable to establish connections with student protesters, and did not respond to calls for a general strike.(9)

While the AKP government has worked for decades to erode worker and trade union rights, the union bureaucracy has appeared increasingly detached from the rank and file.

This is particularly regrettable since there are clear limitations in the politics of Imamoğlu and the CHP. While the party is ostensibly social democratic and its new leader Özgür Özel has positioned himself on the progressive left, Imamoğlu is a corporate, if charismatic, politician.

The mayor of Ankara, the mild-mannered and extremely popular Mansur Yavaş, was previously a member of the fascistic MHP. While the CHP’s commitment to the restoration of parliamentary democracy is laudable, its perennial problem of ideological incoherence creates challenges for mobilizing the masses.

The Wider Context

On March 17, Erdoğan had a phone conversation with Donald Trump. CHP leader Özgür Özel has asserted that during the call Erdoğan asked for Trump’s approval for Imamoğlu’s arrest, which occurred two days later.(10)

It is not difficult, of course, to imagine Trump giving a green light to such a request. Trump is in fact a big fan of the “very smart” Erdoğan. “I have a very, very good relationship with” Erdoğan, Trump said; “I happen to like him, and he likes me.”(11)

Trump’s admiration for Erdoğan was expressed during a meeting with another rightwing leader, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The context involved a journalist’s question regarding Turkey’s involvement in Syria in the wake of the December 2024 downfall of the Assad regime. Trump expressed confidence that Erdoğan and Netanyahu could find common ground in Syria, as long as both sides were “reasonable.”

Syria is crucial to the sub-imperial rivalry between Turkey and Israel, and thus to sociopolitical conflict within Turkey. For Israel, which has bombed Syria hundreds of times since late 2024, the main goal is simply to keep the country weak and unable to pose a threat to its regional dominance.

Erdoğan, by contrast, desires a strengthened Syria, primarily to weaken the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), or Rojava, the autonomous region in northeastern Syria that borders Turkey and that Ankara sees as an extension of the PKK.

While the PKK responded to Abudullah Öcalan call for the Kurdish party to dispand, DAANES did not, saying that the call was not directed at them.

A major step towards this objective occurred in May of 2025, when the PKK agreed to lay down arms and dissolve itself.

Like Imamoğlu’s arrest, this did not come as a major surprise. While the Turkish government was dismissing and replacing mayors in Kurdish-majority regions in 2024, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli suggested the imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan might be allowed to speak in the Turkish Parliament.

After a series of negotiations, in February of 2025 Öcalan called on the organization to disband after more than 40 years of armed struggle.

Bahçeli’s appeal, initially surprising coming from the leader of a racist far-right party that has denied that Kurds exist, was quickly recognized as a political maneuver designed to obtain electoral support from the nation’s Kurds.

More specifically, the support of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party will be necessary for any constitutional change that would allow Erdoğan to run for president again. Notably, in mid-May Erdoğan suggested that following the PKK’s disbandment the government might reconsider its policy of seizing pro-Kurdish municipalities.

A Difficult Prospect

What the PKK’s dissolution will mean in Rojava is unclear. While Erdoğan has demanded DAANES similarly disband, the autonomous administration has refused, saying Öcalan’s call was not directed at them.

With crucial U.S. support uncertain under the Trump regime, however, and with Turkey supporting the Islamist HTS government in Syria, the survival of DAANES looks increasingly precarious.

In addition to positioning Turkey as essential to European stability in regard to Syria and the broader Middle East, Erdoğan has attempted to make Turkey a key player in Russia-Ukraine negotiations. It is unclear, however, whether Erdoğan will be successful in his efforts to make Turkey a peace broker in that intractable conflict.

What does seem clear is that socialists, progressives and democrats within Turkey can expect little help from the United States or Europe in terms of pressure on the authoritarian regime. Trump, clearly, could hardly care less about democratic norms, as his U.S. executive orders make clear.

Europe, for its part, remains beholden to Turkey for security purposes — a fact of which Erdoğan has recently boasted.

Despite domestic plotting and the regime’s favorable geopolitical environment, the Turkish people’s democratic aspirations cannot be suppressed in perpetuity. There is, moreover, an unmistakable sense that something has irreversibly changed in Turkey.

One indication of the government’s fear of the protests was that despite the repression and many arrests, it did not simply replace Imamoğlu with an AKP trustee. Instead, the CHP remained in control of the Istanbul mayoralty, a clear indication of a line the government was unwilling to cross.

Nevertheless, building a united progressive front that fuses demands for economic justice with democratic freedoms remains the primary task for the Turkish left.

Notes

1. Prior to his detention Imamoğlu was free as the case was under appeal.
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2. Eliza Gkritsi, “Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest,” Politico, March 22, 2025. https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/.
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3. “Students and journalists stand trial in Turkey over protests sparked by mayor’s arrest,” AP News, April 18, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/turkey-istanbul-mayor-protests-students-trial-32b9c2ef3d11cf8f2d464c4e57839e97; Amy Walker and Hilken Doğaç Boran, “Trial of nearly 200 people opens after Turkey protests,” BBC, April 18, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz01xgnzv5jo.
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4. “Kars district mayor given prison sentence on ‘terrorism’ charges,” Bianet, February 21, 2025. https://bianet.org/haber/kars-district-mayor-given-prison-sentence-on-terrorism-charges-304757.
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5. Frank Langfitt, “Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism,” NPR, April 22, 2025 (https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy-authoritarianism-competive-survey-political-scientist).
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6. “Millions of Turkish voters back ousted Istanbul mayor in opposition primary,” France 24, March 23, 2005 (https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250323-millions-of-turkish-voters-back-ousted-istanbul-mayor-in-opposition-primary).
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7. Ragip Soylu, “Turkish youth increasingly secular and modern under Erdogan, poll finds,” Middle East Eye, March 20, 2019. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-youth-increasingly-secular-and-modern-under-erdogan-poll-finds; “Gençlik gericilik gömleğini yırtıp attı,” Birgün, May 20, 2025. https://www.birgun.net/haber/genclik-gericilik-gomlegini-yirtip-atti-624361.
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8. Robert Badendieck, “Turkey is marking its centennial. But a brain drain has cast a shadow on the occasion,” AP News, November 9, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/turkey-brain-drain-migrants-erdogan-eu-82ff4c6ad29985fca7cbbfb1234895f7.
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9. “Call for a general strike by Revolutionary Union Solidarity,” Birgün Daily, March 23, 2025. https://www.birgun.net/haber/call-for-a-general-strike-by-revolutionary-union-solidarity-609646.
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10. “Erdoğan’s only support came from Trump: The US leash can’t bear this burden,” Birgün Daily, April 8, 2025. https://www.birgun.net/haber/erdogans-only-support-came-from-trump-the-us-leash-cant-bear-this-burden-613672.
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11. Berkant Gültekin, “‘I like him and he likes me’,” Birgün Daily, April 9, 2025. https://www.birgun.net/haber/i-like-him-and-he-likes-me-614022.
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July-August 2026, ATC 237