{"id":67319,"date":"2026-04-24T00:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/67319\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T00:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:40:18","slug":"20-opposition-mayors-remain-jailed-as-crackdown-on-chp-rolls-back-its-2024-local-election-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/67319\/","title":{"rendered":"20 opposition mayors remain jailed as crackdown on CHP rolls back its 2024 local election gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Twenty elected mayors from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) remain in prison two years after the March 31, 2024, local elections, while 25 CHP mayors, including \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, have been suspended from office, Turkish Minute<\/a> reported, citing the BirG\u00fcn news website.<\/p>\n

According to the report, 23 elected CHP mayors have been jailed since the local elections, with the most recent being Onursal Ad\u0131g\u00fczel, mayor of \u0130stanbul\u2019s Ata\u015fehir district, who was arrested on bribery charges on Wednesday and later suspended by the Interior Ministry. Of those 23, three were later released.<\/p>\n

The March 2024 municipal elections were a major breakthrough for the CHP, which finished first nationwide in a local election for the first time since 1977 and won control of many of Turkey\u2019s biggest cities, including \u0130stanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Antalya and Adana. Since then opposition officials have said the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has used criminal investigations, suspensions, trustee appointments, city council votes and party defections to weaken the party\u2019s hold over local administrations.<\/p>\n

In total, 25 CHP mayors have been suspended from office. Two of them, Mustafa Sar\u0131g\u00fcl, mayor of eastern Tunceli province\u2019s Ovac\u0131k district, and Ali Demir\u00e7al\u0131, mayor of southern Adana province\u2019s Y\u00fcre\u011fir district, were suspended without being jailed after receiving prison sentences in separate cases. Several mayors who were later released, including Ahmet \u00d6zer, mayor of \u0130stanbul\u2019s Esenyurt district, Adana Mayor Zeydan Karalar and Kadir Aydar, mayor of Adana\u2019s Ceyhan district, have not been reinstated.<\/p>\n

Three municipalities won by the CHP in 2024 \u2014 \u0130stanbul\u2019s \u015ei\u015fli and Esenyurt districts and Tunceli\u2019s Ovac\u0131k district \u2014 are now under trustee rule. In four others \u2014 the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality and \u0130stanbul\u2019s Bayrampa\u015fa, Gaziosmanpa\u015fan and Beykoz districts \u2014 control shifted to the AKP through city council votes or party defections after CHP mayors were suspended. The report also said \u00d6zlem \u00c7er\u00e7io\u011flu, mayor of Ayd\u0131n in western Turkey, later joined the AKP, further reducing the CHP\u2019s local gains.<\/p>\n

The campaign first hit \u0130stanbul, where the arrest of Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet \u00d6zer in October 2024 was followed by cases against mayors in Be\u015fikta\u015f, Beykoz and \u015ei\u015fli. It escalated on March 23, 2025, when a court jailed \u0130mamo\u011flu, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s main political rival and the CHP\u2019s presidential candidate, after his detention triggered the country\u2019s largest anti-government protests in years.<\/p>\n

Operations later spread to other CHP-run cities and districts. Bursa Mayor Mustafa Bozbey, the mayor of Turkey\u2019s fourth-largest city, was jailed on April 4 in a corruption investigation and suspended the same day. \u00d6zkan Yal\u0131m, the mayor of U\u015fak, was also jailed and removed from office last month, while Tanju \u00d6zcan, the mayor of Bolu in the northwest, was suspended after his March arrest. Y\u0131lmaz Tozan, mayor of U\u015fak\u2019s E\u015fme district, was suspended this week after being jailed in an extortion investigation.<\/p>\n

The U\u015fak case expanded this week in a second wave of the same investigation, with 16 more people, including local CHP chairman Celalettin \u00c7oban and U\u015fakspor football club president \u00d6zhan \u00d6zg\u00f6bek, jailed on Thursday after prosecutors detained 29 suspects over additional bribery and corruption allegations tied to the municipality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty elected mayors from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) remain in prison two years after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[36893,36894,36895,28724,35555,2031,425,312,36896,36897,36898,35606,26350,429,35556,28727,16707,430,431,131,132,11456,155,34779,36899],"class_list":["post-67319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-2024-local-elections","tag-ahmet-ozer","tag-ali-demircali","tag-bribery-and-corruption-investigations","tag-celalettin-coban","tag-crackdown-on-opposition","tag-democracy","tag-human-rights","tag-kadir-aydar","tag-mustafa-bozbey","tag-mustafa-sarigul","tag-onursal-adiguzel","tag-opposition-run-municipalities","tag-oppression","tag-ozhan-ozgobek","tag-ozkan-yalim","tag-ozlem-cercioglu","tag-republican-peoples-party-chp","tag-rule-of-law","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-tanju-ozcan","tag-turkey","tag-yilmaz-tozan","tag-zeydan-karalar"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}