Turkey’s main opposition CHP seeks to sustain protests over Imamoglu’s arrest
The party faces mounting pressure as nationwide protests continue, with authorities cracking down on supporters and arresting key figures, including several CHP mayors.
Pressure on Turkey’s pro-secular main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), showed no signs of easing, as yet another of its mayors was summoned for questioning on Tuesday amid nationwide protests over the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Sunday.
Inan Guney, the mayor of Istanbul’s cosmopolitan Beyoglu district, is being interrogated over allegations that Imamoglu helped rig a 2023 Istanbul party congress to secure Guney’s victory over his rival.
What may seem to many as an obscure detail amid the torrent of other accusations being hurled at the CHP is potentially consequential, as it may result in bolstering prosecutors’ parallel investigation into the national congress, which elected the party’s current leader, Ozer Ozel, as its head.
The CHP is convening an extraordinary congress on April 6 in order to head off the government’s suspected plan to appoint administrators to lead the party, part of a broader campaign to hobble and weaken it in the run-up to nationwide presidential and parliamentary elections that are due to be held in 2028.
