A political ban has been imposed on the mayor of Istanbul and possible Erdogan challenger Ekrem Imamoglu.
An Istanbul court also sentenced Imamoglu to two years and seven months in prison on Wednesday for insulting him. An appeal can still be lodged against the verdict, said Imamoglu’s lawyer, Kemal Polat, of the German Press Agency. Until the verdict is final, Imamoglu can continue in office.
Imamoglu is a politician from the CHP, which according to polls is currently the opposition party with the most votes in Turkey. He is considered one of the potential challengers to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the elections scheduled for 2023. Imamoglu called the decision a “shame” for the Turkish judiciary in a speech to hundreds of people who protested against the verdict in front of the city hall. He didn’t want to be influenced by the decision.
Members of the Turkish electoral authority insulted
In the indictment, Imamoglu was accused of publicly insulting the members of the Turkish electoral authority in connection with the local elections in 2019. He is said to have described those “who canceled the elections on March 31” as “idiots”. Polat had described the process and the allegations against his client as “baseless”. Imamoglu did not mean the electoral authority, but reacted to the same insult by the interior minister against him, it was said in the final defense of his lawyers. The interior minister, on the other hand, is not on trial. Opposition members described the process as “politically motivated”.
Imamoglu narrowly won the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election against the candidate of the ruling AKP party. However, the election commission annulled the result at the request of the AKP and had the election repeated – Imamoglu won again. Observers see his victory in the 16-million metropolis as an indirect defeat for Erdogan, who campaigned for his party’s candidate. The city had previously been ruled by the AKP and its political predecessors for more than 20 years.
During the trial, several hundred people gathered in front of Istanbul’s city hall to protest against the trial. CHP boss Kemal Kilicdaroglu broke off his trip to Germany in the evening in response to the verdict, as the party announced.
