Tens of thousands of people came to protest on Sunday in Ankara against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the organizers, 50,000 people participate in the protest. The demonstration was convened by the largest opposition party, whose leadership could be dismissed by a court on Monday. It is intended to decide on the possible invalidation of the results of the People’s Republican Party (CHP) election congress (CHP) of 2023 for alleged fraud.
On the square in the center of Ankara, the crowds waved the Turkish flags and flags of the CHP party, and some brought photographs of its leader Özgür Özel, who is threatened with an Ankar court, or his party colleague and former mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu. He has been in prison since March for charging of corruption, which the opposition has described as the effort of Erdogan’s government to remove the main election rival of the current president.
Özel, who led the side of the CHP to win in the local elections last March, accused the government of today’s demonstration of holding the opposition and violations of the principles of democracy. He also called for early parliamentary elections. Özel also read a letter in which Imamoglu from prison criticized Erdogan’s government, trying to determine the result of the next elections by moving the legitimate opponents to the sidelines. After reading the letter, the crowd applauded and chanted the “President of Imamoglu”.
Imamoglu has been the Mayor of Istanbul since 2019, when after two decades he collected the Erdogan party leadership of this city, where about 15 million people live. At that time, the Central Election Commission tried to prevent this by annuling the elections. But Imamoglu also won in repeated voting and described the annulment as a stupid and damaging international reputation as the country. In 2022, he was sentenced to almost three years in prison and ban on the performance of elected functions in 2022; The verdict is not yet final.
This March, he was arrested with dozens of other people shortly before CHP nominated him as a candidate for the next presidential elections. His arrest in Turkey caused the biggest anti -government protests in ten years.
According to Reuters, over 500 people have been arrested in Turkey in the last year, including 17 mayors of towns and municipalities elected for CHP. Many due to suspicion of corruption, which is also the case of Imamoglua.
The Ankara court could invalidate the results of the CHP Congress of November 2023 on Monday, on which he was elected chairman of the Özel party and replaced him by the administrator or Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kilçdaroglu. Already last week, the Istanbul court dismissed the head of the party organization of the CHP in Istanbul Özgür çelik, when he canceled the results of the provincial CHP of 2023. He justified it by corruption.
