Turkey’s main opposition party has been arrested and imprisoned, Mayor Iklem Imamogul, the next presidential candidate, and effectively removed him from the race. In this brave act of political oppression, the Turkish government has taken an important step towards a full-scale dictatorship.
The scheme to remove Imamoguru from play was calculated and thorough. On Tuesday, Imamoguru’s alma mater at Istanbul University revoked his diploma, which by law requires Turkish presidential candidates to obtain a university degree. The next day, Imamoguru was arrested on charges of corruption and terrorism. These court decisions not only derailed his presidential ambitions, but also drove him out of his position as mayor of Turkey’s biggest city and economic power.
For many years, Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan has removed his own power checks and manipulated the manipulation of state institutions to give the advantages of party elections, but up until now, Turkish opposition was able to send viable candidates to challenge his rule. In Imamoguru, the opposition groups thought they had finally found a candidate who could defeat Erdogan in the head-to-head race. By pushing the mayor of Istanbul from politics, the government has crossed the line where the president separates Turkey’s competitive authoritarian system from an enemy and a Russian-style dictatorship purely for display.
The road to dictatorship
During his over 20 years of power, Erdogan dismantled Turkey’s democratic institutions and integrated his control into a system of one-man rules. After a failed attempt at a coup by military officers in 2016, Erdogan and his party were linked to a movement in which members live in other departments of government and public institutions, so Erdogan brought the judiciary under his authority by ousting thousands of judges and replacing them with loyalists who run through his crackdown. The media is holding a muzzle. Over 90% of Turkish media are owned by government companies, and independent journalists are routinely jailed.
The country is still running elections, but the system is very distorted. This is the case of a textbook of a competitive authoritarian regime, mimicking democracy while systematically tilting the arena in favor of the ruling party. Opposition parties are active, there is a real public debate about politics, and incumbents sometimes lose. But election competition is far from fair as government controls the judiciary, restrains independent media, and weaponizes state institutions to weaken the enemy.
Still, Erdogan’s rules remain vulnerable as long as opposition candidates can challenge the election. His victory margin is usually relatively narrow. In the 2023 presidential election leaked round, Erdogan won by 52% of the vote. He sometimes resorted to more extreme measures to keep himself and his party ahead. When Imamogul defeated the candidate from the Erdogan party in 2019 local elections in Istanbul, authorities negated the outcome and forced Imamogul to win again with a wider margin. But Erdogan’s most dangerous tactic is to jail his strongest rival. Serahatin DeMirtas, a charismatic Kurdish politician who challenged Erdogan in the presidential race in 2014 and 2018, has been behind bars since 2016 on suspicious terrorist charges (he ran his second campaign from prison). Imamoguru was also sentenced to a sentence in 2022 for shaming a civil servant. However, the ruling does not prevent the mayor from re-inaugurating office as the case is still pending appeal.
Erdogan doesn’t just want to protect the presidency. He also wants to regain Istanbul.
Last year, Erdogan removed the elected mayor of the opposition and replaced it with a government-appointed political party. Even journalists, politicians, human rights activists and even top business groups in the country are targeted for fake litigation. However, this week’s arrest of Imamoguru is a serious escalation. The charges of terrorism and corruption are far more serious and therefore have far greater consequences than his pending 2022 case charges. And unlike Demirta, which was popular but never among third-party candidates, Imamogul presents a direct threat to Erdogan’s presidency. By removing this rival from the field, Erdogan showed he was not interested in maintaining a competitive election façade. Instead, he wants a kind of dictatorial system that Russian President Vladimir Putin has, with no real opposition or election surprises.
Erdogan is now dangerously close to achieving what he wants, and he is following a similar path to President Putin, whom he took to Russia to get there. Twenty years ago, Russia was not the strictly controlled dictatorship that is what it is today. The country’s economy is booming and President Putin was truly popular, so he tolerated some opposition and left some of the democratic system intact. However, after the 2008 financial crisis, economic growth stagnated and anti-government protests broke out, Putin responded with crackdown. And in 2020 he completely solidified his control as an unchallenged dictator. A constitutional amendment has been passed that allows President Putin to remain in power until 2036. His administration has arrested, exiled, or silenced even the most marginal critics. In August 2020, Kremlin operatives poisoned Putin’s most intense opponent, activist Alexei Navalny, in an attempt to kill him. (Navalny later died in a Russian prison in 2024.) Today, Russian elections are merely a form. While Putin has selected several token opponents to create an illusion of competition, real challengers are prohibited. The outcome is unquestionable.
Like Putin, Erdogan’s popularity waned, and Erdogan’s oppression intensified. Important constituencies, including Turkish youth, are disillusioned. Many young Turks, who are frustrated with Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian policies and lack of economic opportunities, consider immigration. Nationalist backlash against government policies that allow millions of Syrian refugees to live in Türkiye is growing.
Erdogan’s confidence in his position at home may be misguided.
Erdogan’s biggest headache is the country’s illness economy. Turkey has been fighting inflation and economic deterioration since 2018. After years of unorthodox policies defended by Erdogan (which many economists argued were exacerbating the crisis), the new finance minister abandoned the old approach, but has so far failed to turn the economy around. The country’s leading business group, the Turkish Industry and Business Association, has openly criticised the new economic programme. In response, Erdogan denounced the groups that were undermining the government. Meanwhile, Erdogan’s approval was a hit. In the 2024 local elections, the ruling party experienced the biggest defeat in history, despite Erdogan using all state power at his freedom to support the party’s victory.
Erdogan’s growing crackdown on the opposition over the past year has been an effort to stop the momentum. And that means stopping Imamoguru. Imamogul, a political outsider before entering the mayoral race in 2019, shocked the establishment by ending a 25-year hold in Istanbul, the city where Erdogan began his career. Despite Erdogan’s relentless efforts to free him, Imamoguru helped with reelection last year, demonstrating his widespread appeal beyond his party’s traditional secular base. His party tried to retreat the president’s bid – the next election is scheduled for 2028, but may be called earlier, but Imamogul has become a formidable challenger to Erdogan’s rule.
These moves will block Imamoguru’s progress firmly if they are stuck. The invalidation of his diploma disqualifies Imamoguru from running for president, and accusations of terrorism remove him from the mayor’s office. Erdogan doesn’t just want to protect the presidency. He also wants to regain Istanbul. Losing the city to the opposition in 2019 was not just a political setback, but also an economic blow. It cut Erdogan off of the vast city’s resources that have fueled his sponsorship network for decades. Reclaiming Istanbul will help run his political machine at a time of economic difficulties. By removing the mayor, Erdogan can set up the governor of Istanbul (a select appointee) at his location.
Risk taker
Erdogan plays a high-risk, high-reward game. If he succeeds, he heads for the next election against the person he chose himself and effectively secures his rules for life. This power grab suggests he believes he can act with immunity. He may be right. The opposition and political institutions lack the means to constrain him. And while many people in Türkiye are angry, the public also finds themselves with little reliance on the president. Erdogan last faced mass protests in 2013, and the state responded cruelly. Security forces killed several people, injured thousands, and arrested masses. Erdogan has since concluded the public gathering to ensure that the demonstrations never reach the same scale again.
Turkish leaders also take advantage of a highly tolerant international environment. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House encouraged Erdogan. He is not afraid of US retaliation because Trump has shown zero interest in actively undermining American democracy and putting foreign dictators accountable for their crackdown. Trump’s overture to Putin also rattles off European leaders and forces them to repeat again with Turkey in hopes of strengthening their defense against Russian attacks.
But Erdogan’s confidence in his position at home may be misguided. It backfired spectacularly when he last tried to stand by Imamoguru. The narrowly won by Imamoguru, the forced re-run of the 2019 mayoral election in Istanbul, infuriated many voters who they deemed as unfair interference by the government. In the second vote, Imamoguru won with a larger margin. This is the biggest for the mayor of Istanbul in decades.
More importantly, Erdogan may aim to be like Putin, but Turkey is not Russia. Unlike Russia, which thrives on resource wealth, Türkiye’s economy is heavily dependent on foreign investment. As the county grows more authoritarian, investors are already fleeing, and slips to a full dictatorship bring them back. The Turkish economy remains in crisis. And even Strongman must bring results to grasp power.
Gonul Tol is the director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkish Programme and is the author of Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and Syria.