One thing is clear: the old Turkey is gone. The question now is whether the Turkish people will get to shape what comes next, writes Umut Özkırımlı [photo credit: Getty Images]
It finally happened: Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s mayor and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s most formidable likely challenger in the 2028 presidential election, was formally arrested on flimsy corruption charges, after four days in custody.
The move was a long time coming, and it cannot be dismissed as mere political manoeuvring. It might not seem like it, but this is how coups often happen nowadays: with no blood and no noise beyond the whimper of a democracy dying in handcuffs.
After 23 years in power, and with Turkey’s economy collapsing, Erdoğan knows that no election – even a rigged one – is safe. This left him with two options: cancel the vote or remove any credible opponent. But timing mattered. Before making his move, he had to make sure that the geopolitical chessboard was arranged in his favour.
This meant brokering a ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It also meant forestalling any pushback from the European Union.
To this end, Erdoğan brandished the possibility of unleashing migrant flows to the European Union – a threat that gained force following the collapse of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which he helped bring about. And he flexed Turkey’s military muscles at a time when America’s commitment to NATO is dubious, at best, thereby sending a clear message that, without Turkey, Europe’s eastern flank is dangerously exposed.
Once he had established himself as indispensable, Erdoğan took his shot, and eliminated İmamoğlu. The move carried short-term costs: Turkey’s central bank had to spend a record $12 billion to support the lira. But the response of the opposition so far has been the political equivalent of tripping over one’s own shoelaces at the starting line.
The Turkish public, however, is incensed. Since İmamoğlu’s arrest, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand his release and, more broadly, justice and human rights.
The protests quickly spread from Istanbul and Ankara to Adana, Antalya, Çanakkale, Çorum, Edirne, Eskişehir, Kayseri, and even the religiously conservative Konya, where at least 200 farmers, some with their tractors, joined the movement.
The upsurge of popular opposition has undoubtedly rattled Erdoğan. Gatherings and protests have been banned nationwide, and those who have defied them have been met with the familiar tools of state repression: batons, water cannons, and tear gas. More than 1,400 protesters have so far been detained.
The government has also limited travel to and from Istanbul, restricted access to several social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube; prohibited live broadcasts of rallies and protests; and arrested several journalists, including Yasin Akgül of Agence France-Presse and the award-winning photojournalist Bülent Kılıç. “Turkey is not a country that will be on the street – it will not surrender to street terrorism,” Erdoğan recently warned.
The ground for Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), to unify the opposition and offer a credible alternative to Erdoğan’s leadership could not be more fertile.
Yet all the CHP has offered so far are tired populist and nationalist platitudes, more suited to Turkey’s tutelary past than its existential present. No mention of Turkey’s last mass protest movement, the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations, which were fueled by similarly powerful grassroots energy. No outreach to the Kurds, who have repeatedly proved decisive in elections, and who continue to face severe oppression. And no recognition that this moment is bigger than party politics.
This isn’t just a glitch or misstep; it is a symptom of a deeper problem. The CHP is clinging to an outdated political mindset, more focused on contesting elections than defending democracy. This explains why the protesters are not rallying behind the party, but rather asking it, politely but firmly, to get out of the way.
Subscribe Now and Listen to our Podcasts OnIf the CHP learns anything from İmamoğlu’s arrest, it should be that old tactics, based on the belief that change happens through polite negotiations and staged confrontations, are no longer fit for purpose.
This does not mean merely that the party must adjust its methods. Rather, the CHP must recognize that it is no longer a protagonist in Turkish politics. That role now belongs to the Turkish people – the discontented, the frustrated, and the defiant, who see İmamoğlu’s arrest as an attack not on one man, but on their collective future.
İmamoğlu’s arrest should also serve as a wake-up call for the observers and academics who remain convinced that Turkey is a hybrid regime, in which electoral competition is “real but unfair,” rather than a full-blown autocracy.
Even the political scientists who proposed the idea of “competitive authoritarianism,” Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, revised their theory in 2020, observing that a new breed of strongmen has been using “polarizing populist and ethnonationalist strategies” to cement power. If the CHP is wise, it will look beyond outdated academic scripts, poll numbers, and Kemalist bedtime stories to devise a strategy that resonates with protesters, rather than undermining or destroying their momentum.
One thing is clear: the old Turkey is gone. The question now is whether the Turkish people will get to shape what comes next. It is too soon to tell whether the current wave of popular anger and disillusionment will evolve into a coherent movement capable of outmanoeuvring, let alone overcoming, Erdoğan and his cronies.
But it should be obvious that when the game is rigged, trying to play it better – more thoughtfully, more shrewdly, more boldly – is futile. The only way to have any chance of winning is to flip the board.
Umut Özkırımlı is a senior research fellow at IBEI and a professor at Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University.
Follow Umut on X: @UOzkirimli
This article originally appeared in Project Syndicate.
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