Political upheaval in Turkey: Istanbul mayor arrested and deposed

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00:00For more, Andy Hillier joins me on set. Hi, Andy. So, protesters are gathering for a fifth

00:06day in Turkey today. Can you start by taking us through today's developments?

00:09There have been a lot of significant developments today. As you mentioned there, perhaps the

00:15most significant coming in the last few hours, Ekrem Imamoglu suspended as mayor of Istanbul.

00:24That was after he was earlier this morning formally arrested and charged with corruption.

00:30He arrived at a civilian prison quite a distance outside Istanbul just a few hours ago as well,

00:39as you can see in these pictures here. Now, he has posted his reaction to social media

00:45and I can read for you now just one of the things he said. He said that he invited the

00:49nation to a responsible struggle for rights, adding that the struggle for rights was a

00:55matter for the future of the nation and for the nation's children. He also added encouraging

01:02citizens to go out and vote today. I'll just tell you in a short while what he's referring

01:08to there. Either way, the situation as it stands is likely, if anything, to stoke and

01:13inflame tensions even further in Turkey. Now, Imamoglu's party, the Republican People's

01:19Party, that is the main opposition party in Turkey, has gone ahead with this primary

01:23vote. It is, if anything, more an informal vote set to confirm Imamoglu as the party's

01:30contender in the 2028 presidential election. He will certainly win that vote, but that

01:37vote certainly won't be recognised by Turkey's Supreme Electoral Council. Now, what the CHP,

01:42the Republican People's Party, has done is encourage members of the party and non-members

01:48of the party to participate. So the point here is that they want to turn this vote really

01:53into a kind of symbol for the opposition to show their opposition to President Erdogan.

02:00So we are going to see large crowds forming tonight for a fifth night outside Istanbul

02:06City Hall in Saracan. So how do these protests, Andy, compare to the last big wave of anti-government

02:12demonstrations that we saw over 10 years ago in 2013? Yeah, in 2013, of course, we saw

02:18the Gezi Park protest. These were protests against plans to build a mosque and a shopping

02:25mall on one of central Istanbul's only green spaces. I was actually there. I covered these

02:31protests. I remember when there was, at the moment, protesters formed a human chain across

02:35Taksim Square to symbolically protect the park moments before the occupation in that

02:42park was cleared by riot police. Now, that sparked days of rioting in Istanbul and other

02:46cities across Turkey. Of course, that protest Gezi Park becoming a symbol of something bigger,

02:53the protests morphed into a demonstration against mass corruption and against authoritarianism.

02:58Now, since then, the slide towards authoritarianism in Turkey has become more pronounced. And

03:04what many demonstrators have been saying this time around, including even demonstrators

03:08here in Paris, who I spoke to yesterday, there was a small demonstration held by the opposition

03:13party, the CHP, here in Paris. They've been saying that this is, for them, shaping up

03:18to be a fight about the future of Turkish democracy, or at least in their eyes, what's

03:22left of Turkish democracy. President Erdogan hasn't, I think, hesitated to drive a wedge

03:29right through Turkish society in the last decade with his divisive rhetoric. You have

03:35two visions of Turkey, really, one embodied by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the other embodied

03:40by Ekrem Imamoglu. And it's for that reason that neither side will want to back down.

03:46So finally, Andrew, there are also, interestingly enough, parallels between Erdogan and Imamoglu.

03:53Can you walk us through some of those?

03:55Yeah, that's right. They may represent or embody different visions of Turkish society,

03:59but there are some significant parallels. And those parallels certainly won't have been

04:02lost on President Erdogan. He'll be aware of them. Both men spent a part of their childhood

04:08in Trabzon province, which is on the Black Sea coast. And most notably, they have both

04:13served as mayor of Istanbul. President Erdogan actually made his name in Turkey's largest

04:19city in the 1990s. He famously said, whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey. Now, those words

04:23may come back to haunt him. It will have stung him personally, very personally, President

04:29Erdogan, when he lost the city in the municipal elections in 2019 to the opposition, to Ekrem

04:35Imamoglu. He lost again in 2024 to Ekrem. His party lost to Ekrem Imamoglu in 2024 last

04:41year as well. Now, interestingly enough, President Erdogan was also arrested in 1999 when he

04:49was mayor of Istanbul. On his release, that reinforced his popularity. It sealed his political

04:56rise. His party went on to win the general election in 2002, three years later, and he

05:01became prime minister a year after that in 2003. We are three years out from a presidential

05:07election officially in Turkey. Will the parallels continue or will they stop? That's the big

05:13unknown for now.

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