Ekrem Imamoglu found himself in the sights of the regime after having inflicted in March 2019 his humiliating defeat in the Recep Tayyip Party Erdogan by winning the town hall of Istanbul after twenty-five years of reign of the AKP.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
The repression against opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues. Wednesday, December 14, the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, a rising star of the Turkish political scene, was sentenced to more than two years in prison for “insults to officials”, and a ban on exercising a political mandate of The same duration, six months of crucial elections in Turkey.
The councilor, member of the republican party of the people (CHP, social democrat), the main opposition party to the power of Erdogan, was accused of having qualified “idiots” the members of the electoral college who had invalidated his election in March 2019, as well as the Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soyu.
m. Imamoglu immediately decided to appeal this conviction to two years, seven months and fifteen days of detention, announced his lawyer, M e Kemal Polat. The appeal will be suspensive, he said, which means that Mr. Imamoglu will retain his mandate as mayor during the examination of the appeal.
“A handful of people cannot confiscate the power entrusted by the people. Our struggle resumes with even more force,” reacted Mr. Imamoglu after the statement of the verdict. The verdict, pronounced by a court of Istanbul, accompanied the conviction to Mr. Imamoglu’s prison of a “deprivation of certain rights”, including that of eligibility, for the same duration as his prison sentence, said the lawyers. If the sentence is confirmed on appeal, “the prohibition of political activity will be of the same duration as the sentence pronounced,” confirmed the lawyer.
potential presidential candidate
The 52 -year -old mayor found himself in the viewfinder of the regime after having inflicted in March 2019 his humiliating defeat in Mr. Erdogan, by winning the town hall of Istanbul, which was managed for twenty -Cinq years by the Party of Justice and Development (AKP), in power. His election was first canceled by the government, forced to bow three months later in the face of the mobilization of the electorate which offered a wider victory to the opponent. Some time later, Ekrem Imamoglu had described those who had invalidated his first election as “idiots”, which earned him to be prosecuted. “I was only responding, by sending him his own terms to the Minister of the Interior, who had treated me a idiot,” said the councilor.
While Mr. Imamoglu risks being prohibited from policy if the sentence is confirmed on appeal, the opposition alliance, composed of six parties including the CHP, has still not managed to designate a common candidate For the presidential election which must be held in June 2023. The mayor of Istanbul has among a handful of opposition leaders that the polls give winners against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, faced with a serious economic crisis and official inflation around 85 %.
But the leader of the CHP, Kemal Kilicdaglu, would prefer to present himself, according to many observers. Mr. Kilicdagllu, traveling to Berlin, advanced his return to Turkey on Wednesday. Before getting on the plane, he denounced, in a window Video message posted on Twitter , “a massacre of the law” and “rotten justice”.
While asserting his support for the leader of his party, Mr. Imamoglu did not close the door to his possible candidacy, ensuring Tuesday evening in an interview with the TV television channel one that his “shoulders are able to wear All kinds of responsibilities “.