Turkish democracy is on life-support. The moment that millions across the country had long feared would occur under the hardline rule of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks to have finally arrived: the brazen arrest of political opponents. The significance of what is happening is not lost on the public, with tens of thousands continuing to protest across Turkey, in defiance of an increasingly severe government response.
Earlier this month, the popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested. As the anticipated presidential candidate for Turkey’s main opposition party, he was widely expected to pose the most serious challenge to Erdogan since he came to power in 2002. Indeed, while an election is not due in Turkey until 2028, Imamoglu recently began to out-perform Erdogan in many opinion polls.
This is likely why Erdogan has decided to act now, and clamp down on a genuine political threat to his rule. On Wednesday 19 March, the police seized Imamoglu at his home and charged him with multiple offences, including corruption and abetting a terrorist organisation. Imamoglu, who according to reports was subject to a brutal, nine-hour interrogation, denies the charges.
This is a hugely significant moment in modern Turkey’s history. In recent years, Erdogan has come to wield enormous executive power and effective control over the judiciary and most of the media – especially after the attempted coup against him in 2016, which prompted Erdogan to change the constitution in his favour in 2017.
Yet up until the arrest of Imamoglu, Turkey was still just about a democracy. Electoral odds were heavily weighted in Erdogan’s favour, but popular, opposition candidates could still run against him in relatively free and fair elections. But on 19 March that all changed. With the arrest of Imamoglu, along with his top advisers and other local officials, Turkey crossed a line from democracy to outright autocracy.
The public backlash has been monumental. Huge swathes of Turkish society, including those traditionally supportive of Erdogan, have rallied behind Imamoglu. There have been massive and sustained public protests across the country for well over a week. According to multiple reports, these have so far led to the arrest of nearly 2,000 people.
The scale of the support for Imamoglu became apparent just over a week ago, when his Republican People’s Party (PK) held its presidential primary despite the mayor’s arrest. After the PK opened primary voting to non-party members, Imamoglu received 15million votes. This shows the momentum that he and the CHP have been building since 2019, when it won the mayoral elections of Turkey’s three biggest cities: Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Election results that Erdogan still refuses to accept.
Many Turks are well aware that Turkish democracy is on the line. But if they’re expecting support from Europe’s leaders, they will be disappointed. The EU’s response to the president’s assault on democracy, all too predictable given its support for the recent coup against democracy in Romania, has been luke-warm at best. Last week, the European Commission said Turkey needed to ‘uphold democratic values’, but little more. Incredibly, it added that it wanted ‘Turkey to remain anchored in Europe’.
The US has also been notably silent. Last month, vice-president JD Vance berated EU countries over their retreat from ‘fundamental values’ like democracy and free speech. Yet he has said nothing about the arrest of a political opposition leader by the president of America’s NATO ally.
Turkish citizens, protesting against this assault on their rights, deserve so much better. They need the full-throated support of democrats everywhere. Turkish democracy must be saved.
Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.