Jailed Istanbul mayor named opposition candidate for Turkey’s presidential vote
Turkey's opposition and the second largest party in parliament has officially nominated jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as their candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
A spokesman for the Republican People's Party (CHP) made the announcement on Monday, after Imamoglu spent his first night in detention following corruption charges brought against him.
Imamoglu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's key political rival, has been arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and stripped of his mayorship in less than a week following a graft and terror probe that the opposition has condemned as a political “coup.”
Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) said in a statement that authorities detained 10 Turkish journalists, who covered the widespread demonstrations triggered by his arrest, early on Monday.
The rights group added that most of those detained were covering the mass demonstrations outside City Hall, where tens of thousands of protesters rallied late on Sunday.
Officers were seen firing water cannons at some protesters and using pepper spray.
Imamoglu's wife Dilek Kaya Imamoglu addressed the large crowds outside the City Hall, telling demonstrators that the “injustice” her husband has faced has “struck a chord with every conscience.”
The protests, which kicked off in Istanbul after Imamoglu's arrest on March 19, have since expanded to over 55 of Turkey's 81 provinces, resulting in confrontations with riot police in the country's most significant street protests in more than a decade.
CHP held a primary election on Sunday with Imamoglu as the sole candidate. The party said nearly 15 million people cast a ballot.
It announced that some 1.6 million votes came from its members, while the rest were cast by non-members at separate ballot boxes for those who wished to show solidarity with the jailed Istanbul mayor.
The voter turnout led to an extension of polling by an additional three-and-a-half hours.
In response to the large-scale protests, Turkish authorities attempted to shut down more than 700 accounts on X.
“We object to multiple court orders from the Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority to block over 700 accounts of news organizations, journalists, political figures, students, and others within Turkiye,” the online platform’s communications team said in a statement on Sunday.
"We believe this decision from the Turkish government is not only unlawful, it hinders millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country,” it said.
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