“I will be where the nation wants me to be,” Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu said on Tuesday, in his first less ambiguous answer to a question about his candidacy for president.
Türkiye will hold presidential elections in 2028, likely the last one for incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Imamoğlu, of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was long rumored to challenge Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the general vote.
A businessperson who made his foray into politics with the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP) in his youth, Imamoğlu revived a long-dormant career when he joined the CHP in 2008. Five years later, he was elected as CHP mayor of Beylikdüzü, a far-flung district of Istanbul where his family runs a construction business. He shot to fame when his party nominated him against Binali Yıldırım of the AK Party in the 2019 elections for Istanbul’s mayoral seat. After a contested vote and a recount, he secured his first term. In the March 31 municipal vote, he once again defeated the AK Party in Istanbul, something political pundits tied to support for İmamoğlu among non-CHP voters.
Speaking in an interview with pro-CHP SZC TV on Tuesday, Imamoğlu said the CHP should avoid “people trying to pit us against each other.” He was commenting on recent statements by CHP Chair Özgür Özel, who underlined that he won’t run for the presidency in the next elections. Özel described himself as a “football coach” in a recent interview and said he preferred to pick the “right player for penalty shoot” instead of “shooting for himself.” Imamoğlu turned to the same analogy in his interview but insisted that “being a teammate is better than picking players.”
Imamoğlu also spoke about his trial for insulting officials of the country’s Supreme Election Council (YSK), where he faces a prison term and a potential political ban that can hinder his political ambitions. He implied that public unrest may break out if a higher court upholds such a political ban and prison term. An Istanbul court in 2022 ordered a two-year and seven-month prison sentence for Imamoğlu for his remarks targeting YSK officials during the contested 2019 vote. “If the higher court upholds it, the government won’t see the verdict by the Court of Appeals,” the mayor warned, claiming that the government intervened with judicial decisions. “This nation will stand up against it. They will send you home,” he said.
