WSJ
Updated on: Nov 13, 2025 10:58 am IST
His top political rival now faces up to 2,352 years in prison.
Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan doesn’t merely want his main political rival locked up. He wants to bury the key in the sands of time—for more than two millennia. Witness the charges brought this week against Ekrem Imamoğlu, the popular Istanbul mayor.
Police arrested Mr. Imamoğlu in March, as the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was preparing to nominate him as the opposition presidential candidate. He’s been in jail since. On Tuesday a prosecutor unveiled more than 140 criminal charges against Mr. Imamoğlu, ranging from bribery and money laundering to violation of the forest law. The prosecution seeks a sentence of up to 2,352 years.
Authorities claim Mr. Imamoğlu is the head of a vast criminal enterprise, but his real offense is his popularity with Turkish voters. The Erdoğan government used a trumped-up speech offense to disqualify Mr. Imamoğlu from running for President in 2023 after the polls showed he would have been a strong contender. In 2024 Mr. Imamoğlu sought another term as Istanbul mayor and beat Mr. Erdoğan’s preferred candidate in a landslide.
That voter rebuke rankled Mr. Erdoğan, who rose to political prominence in that same Istanbul office. As Prime Minister and then as President, he’s spent the past 22 years concentrating power in his own hands. He’s not about to let Mr. Imamoğlu stand between him and a fourth, or fifth, or 2,000th, term as President. Mr. Erdoğan’s dictatorial ambition and political insecurity explain the prosecutorial overkill.
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