Turkish democracy under stress: Erdogan’s top rival sentenced to two years in penal complex.

A Turkish court docket convicted Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of threatening a first-rate prosecutor and sentenced him to a year and eight months in penal complex on Wednesday.

Imamouglu, who is the Presidential candidate for the lead opposition catch together CHP has already been in detention heart since March 23 pending trial on separate corruption fees.

Wednesday’s conviction is according to comments made on Jan. 20 in which Imamouglu accused Istanbul’s Chief Public Prosecutor Akin Gurlek of targeting opposition figures via alleged politically motivated investigations.

The court docket convicted Imamoglu of insulting and threatening Gurlek however acquitted him of the price of publicly identifying him with the intent of making him a aim. Imamoglu is anticipated to charm the ruling.

Tons of of supporters gathered outside Silivri penal complex, west of Istanbul, on Friday, the build the court docket heard Imamoglu’s defence.

Addressing the judge, the 54-year-frequent mayor acknowledged he turned into once in price because he had received three elections against the actual person “who thinks he owns Istanbul,” a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who launched his political career because the metropolis’s mayor in the Nineteen Nineties.

The Turkish government has insisted that the courts are just and free of political involvement.

Ekrem Imamouglu is widely regarded because the very best challenger to President Erdogan ahead of the 2028 customary election, however because it stands, the opposition leader might maybe presumably well no longer be eligible to crawl for field of business as he faces bigger than seven years of penal complex and a political ban across a pair of ongoing investigations.

Imamouglu is no longer the correct opposition determine being prosecuted. In Early July, Turkish police arrested bigger than 120 metropolis hall individuals in Izmir, Western Türkiye, a stronghold of the CHP.

The mass arrests of opposition figures have sparked bother over Türkiye eroding democracy under President Erdogan. The country is at this time classified as ‘ non-free’ by Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index 2025.

“With the most popular rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now in prison, the arrest of hundreds of others in investigations against the CHP, and rumors circulating that the government may seek to even take over the party, Turkey is on the cusp of a transition to a consolidated dictatorship”, Ragged Senior Director of Learn at Freedom House, Nate Schenkkan acknowledged.

Extra sources • Freedom House