Arrest of opposition candidate plunges Turkey into crisis

On Wednesday, 19 March, Turkey awoke to the news of a major round of arrests targeting opposition figures. Around a hundred politicians, journalists and academics were arrested, including Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. The latter is Erdoğan’s greatest adversary. He was planning to stand in the upcoming presidential elections.

Faced with growing popular anger, Erdoğan is increasingly leaning on repression to hold onto power. But he risks provoking a reaction from the workers and the youth. And the backlash has already started, as hundreds of thousands take to the streets. 

Repression

On Wednesday morning, about a hundred leading figures from the opposition were rounded up by police. There had already been previous rounds of arrests in February, targeting dissidents left, right, and centre. This ranged from mayors and local politicians; left-wing journalists, activists, artists, and academics, some of them involved in the Gezi Park protests of 2013; respectable centrist politicians; right-wing demagogues; and social media influencers, including an astrologer who had predicted Erdoğan’s electoral defeat! 

But the events of Wednesday represent a major escalation. Ekrem İmamoğlu was among the detainees. He is the mayor of Turkey’s biggest city and is the most prominent politician in the opposition. He is Turkey’s second most powerful political figure after Erdoğan himself. For years, the regime had been trying to hobble him with a barrage of legal probes, but he had always managed to wriggle himself out. Since 2019, he has been the mayor of Istanbul, which is an ideal springboard for presidential candidacies. Erdoğan himself had been Istanbul mayor in the 1990s. On Sunday, İmamoğlu was formally jailed and suspended as Istanbul mayor. 

The timing of the arrest is not accidental. İmamoğlu was about to announce his candidacy for the presidential race in the primaries of the Kemalist People’s Republican Party (CHP), which were scheduled for Sunday 23 March. He was already in full campaign mode. Presidential elections are officially scheduled for 2028, but an early vote is likely. This is because legally Erdoğan cannot serve another term unless there are early elections or the constitution is amended. With a view to blocking İmamoğlu’s candidacy, Erdoğan’s pliant judges had him arrested on trumped-up charges of aiding the Kurdish armed group PKK and of forming “a criminal group”. Previously, the state University of Istanbul had annulled Imamoglu’s university degree, which is a prerequisite to stand in presidential elections.

After the arrests, the Istanbul governor banned all protests, mass gatherings, and press conferences in the city for four days. Thousands of police were deployed across the city. The authorities shut down central metro stations and other transport hubs and cordoned off important squares and avenues. Access to social media was restricted.  

The gravity of these developments is evident. CHP chair Özgür Özel said this amounts to a “coup”. These words were echoed by other opposition parties, which have united against the regime. These events have spooked the capitalists. The value of the lira plummeted on Wednesday, and the central bank has sent millions to stabilise it. The value of the Turkish stock exchange index also tanked. Investors fear this repression heralds instability and unrest. Moreover, they are concerned Erdoğan’s sole priority is his political survival, which he places above the capitalists’ economic interests. 

Undoubtedly, the events of Wednesday represent an important step in the Bonapartist evolution of the Erdoğan regime. It is not unthinkable that the regime will now turn its cannons on the CHP as a whole. Its latest congress is already under investigation. But using these heavy-handed methods Erdoğan risks opening Pandora’s box, provoking a mass movement against his rotten regime.

Crisis of the regime

For several years, the Turkish regime has been in a deep crisis. Erdoğan has been in power since 2002. In his first years, he benefited from favourable economic conditions. Things began to change with the 2008 crisis. Erdoğan’s standing was seriously shaken by the mass protests of Gezi Park in 2013. In 2014-16, this oppositional mood found an expression in the rise of the leftist, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). 

However, the repression that followed the Gezi movement, the spillover of the Syrian Civil War, the ensuing refugee crisis, and the reignition of the Kurdish conflict in 2016 stunned popular protest. Most importantly, Erdoğan survived a failed military coup in July 2016, which was followed by brutal repression. He used this to strengthen his hold over the state apparatus, which was thoroughly purged. This was a decisive blow to the old Kemalist establishment which had run the republic since its birth. Erdoğan’s wing of the ruling class was now firmly in charge.

cropped erdogan sitting Image kremlin.ruFor several years, the Turkish regime has been in a deep crisis. After more than twenty years in power, Erdoğan is losing his grip. This explains the current wave of repression / Image: kremlin.ru

Meanwhile, the coup confused and demoralised the working class and the youth. Popular protest ebbed for several years. However, the mood began to change after the pandemic. Turkey was plunged into a deep social crisis, with a dramatic inflationary spiral that pulverised wages. Inflation has been affecting all capitalist countries since the pandemic, but here it is aggravated by Erdoğan’s fixation on low interest rates, which provided easy credit to his cronies in the real estate sector. He U-turned on these policies in 2024, stabilising the value of the lira somewhat and ‘cooling down’ the economy through harsh austerity. This delighted the capitalists, but living conditions for workers and the poor have continued to deteriorate. Life has also become more difficult for the petty bourgeoisie. This led to the sharp rise of oppositional moods in society.

The years 2022-23 saw an unprecedented upswing in the number of strikes. Electorally, popular anger was reflected in Erdoğan’s tight victory in the 2023 presidential vote, which he won by the skin of his teeth using all sorts of dirty tricks. 

The March 2024 local elections were a blow to Erdoğan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost all major cities, including Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, and Izmir, as well as historical strongholds of the AKP in Anatolia such as Denizli. The Kemalist CHP began to overtake the AKP in opinion polls.

After more than twenty years in power, Erdoğan is losing his grip. This explains the current wave of repression. In the AKP congress in March, Erdoğan vowed to deal with “the opposition problem that poisons democracy”. By arresting the leader of the CHP, the regime signals that it is dropping the pretence of bourgeois democracy. It is determined to remain in power whatever the cost, even if it is through brute force.

Not only is Erdoğan’s personal future at stake, but also the dense undergrowth of nepotism and vested interests nurtured by 23 years of AKP rule. This is a momentous decision. But Erdoğan is a clever operator who must have weighed his options carefully.  

Partly in an attempt to divide and confuse the opposition, he has engaged in a new peace process with Kurdish PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. In late February, the latter called for the end of the armed struggle and for the dissolution of the PKK. This is a historic gesture. To obtain this, Erdoğan must have offered some concessions, even if cosmetic. 

This is an attempt to split the Kemalists from the Kurdish nationalists, who had formed a Faustian pact against the AKP. The Kurdish vote is crucial, not only in the Kurdish-majority areas of the south-east but in all the big urban centres. Moreover, Kurdish deputies are kingmakers in a parliament that is sharply divided between the AKP and the Kemalists. Calculating that the ostensible end of the Kurdish conflict would help unhitch the Kurds from the Kemalists, he felt more confident to strike at the latter.  

This is typical of Erdoğan. Only a few years ago when the Kurdish movement and the HDP were becoming a focal point for anti-establishment sentiments, Erdogan formed a united front with the CHP and launched a brutal war against the Kurds in Turkey as well as in Syria. In the process, he also banned the HDP and arrested its leaders. Now he is attempting the reverse combination. 

Erdoğan also has the international context in mind. Turkey’s powerful army and military industry are useful assets for the current rearmament drive of the European imperialists. Erdoğan is playing this card to strengthen his position vis-à-vis the EU. Although Brussels has issued its customary protests about İmamoğlu’s arrest, it is unlikely Erdoğan’s authoritarianism will get in the way of their rapprochement. 

Turkey has also emerged as the main powerbroker in Syria after the fall of Assad, where there is also much at stake for the Europeans (starting with the question of the Syrian refugees). Wrapping up the Kurdish conflict at home will presumably facilitate a deal with the Syrian Kurds and further strengthen his hand in Damascus. 

He also expects to play a role in the Ukrainian peace deal and will curry favour with Trump and Putin. Erdoğan feels he is strong enough internationally to embark on a major repressive drive within Turkey. As the Financial Times put it: “Ankara’s newfound importance to European defence, coupled with Trump’s White House return, may have been factors that emboldened Erdoğan […] to move against his main rival.”

Erdoğan’s gambit, however, is very risky. While the bourgeois media refers to him as a ‘strongman’, the foundations of his regime have become very fragile. The arrests have generated outroar. 

On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of students from Istanbul University marched on campus and clashed with police. Not only were they protesting state repression, but also at the role of the university administration in annulling İmamoğlu’s degree. The student movement spread to other universities in Istanbul, Ankara, and other cities. In the evening, mass protests took place in Istanbul and Ankara, despite the four-day ban on protests and transport restrictions. The movement continued and spread over the weekend, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets across the country despite brutal police repression. 

Moreover, if Erdoğan was willing to drive a wedge between the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) and the CHP, this attack has only driven them closer together. Indeed, İmamoğlu’s putative PKK connection relates to his collaboration with DEM, which now expects to be the next in line for repression. 

In short, the popular backlash has already begun, and its consequences are unforeseeable. This is what the capitalists, in Turkey and abroad, most fear.  As we write, the protests are developing rapidly. Students are at the forefront of the movement. This is no coincidence. It is a fresh layer that does not carry the burden of the defeat of the Gezi Park struggle and did not live through the repression that followed the 2016 coup.

The opposition

However, the factor that weighs most heavily in Erdoğan’s mind is the helplessness of the opposition. He counts on its incapacity to put up serious resistance. This impression is not unfounded. 

The CHP has rocketed in opinion polls and performed very well in last year’s local elections. But its rise indicates a rejection of Erdoğan rather than mass support for Turkey’s traditional bourgeois party. İmamoğlu is a capitalist politician whose economic programme does not differ fundamentally from Erdoğan’s. He is a businessman and his family owns a large real estate firm. The CHP denounces Erdoğan for undermining the constitution, the republic, secularism, and (bourgeois) democracy. In a word, it defends the old status quo that existed before Erdoğan.

İmamoğluWe have no sympathy for İmamoğlu, a bourgeois politician who serves the interests of the capitalist class. However, his arrest is a serious attack against democratic rights, which will be turned against the workers and the youth / Image: Wikimedia Commons

In turn, the AKP has cultivated support among the religious and conservative segments of the population, which had been alienated by the traditional secularist policies of the Kemalists (although of late the AKP has lost support even among these layers). This is, in essence, a Turkish version of identity politics, which divides the working class into secularists and Islamists.  

The only way to overcome this divide is through class politics: by uniting all workers, irrespective of their religious beliefs, around a socialist programme for radical social transformation, against the capitalist exploiters and their political representatives, be they Kemalist or Islamist. The problem is that the Turkish (and Kurdish) left that could put forward such a programme has tailed behind the CHP, in an effort to unseat Erdoğan electorally. With the left staking everything on an electoral win of the CHP, street mobilisations had become infrequent in recent years, even in a context of seething anger, strikes, and industrial conflict. This is lesser-evilism à la turque.

We have no sympathy for İmamoğlu, a bourgeois politician who serves the interests of the capitalist class. However, his arrest is a serious attack against democratic rights, which will be turned against the workers and the youth. It is the duty of the working class to fight back. But it must do so using its own methods and relying on its own forces.

Rallying behind the CHP is a finished formula for defeat. Yet the statements of the left-wing leaders after Wednesday indicate that this is exactly what they intend to do. DEM issued no independent slogans, abstractly calling for “democracy, democracy, democracy”. 

Similarly, the Workers Party called on “people to raise their voices against this attack”. The Workers’ Party’s three demands are “municipal democracy, the right to peaceful resistance at the Gezi movement, the right to receive news in the press and social media”, which is something the CHP could subscribe to. Its general secretary held a public meeting with the CHP leaders. 

In turn, the DİSK trade union federation issued a statement that says many correct things, arguing that the aim of Erdoğan’s repression is ultimately to increase the exploitation of the working class. However, again, they do not put forward any clear slogans, beyond “uniting for justice, democracy, and our country”. Their leadership also visited the CHP offices to illustrate their close rapport. Remarkably, they are not calling for a general strike. 

These policies only help the CHP retain the initiative, which they will use to try and derail the movement. While the CHP referred to İmamoğlu’s arrest as a “coup”, they have done very little in practice to resist this. Over the previous days, they invested a lot of energy into their party primaries on Sunday, which they opened to all citizens as an act of defiance against the arrest of İmamoğlu. In the primaries, 15 million people voted, out of which 13 million were non-party members. This is a very high figure that indicates the groundswell of popular anger. However, it remains a symbolic gesture that must now be backed up by action.

The CHP has called for rallies to continue, but they are clearly unprepared to escalate the protests into a mass movement to bring down the regime. This has to do with the class character of the CHP leadership. They are all bourgeois politicians. Their entire outlook draws them towards a narrowly legalistic, symbolic, and institutional battle. But this poses no real threat to Erdoğan. If the movement is contained within the bounds of routine rallies and symbolic votes, defeat is almost certain. 

Mass struggle 

The masses on the street see through the incapacity of the Kemalists. The CHP leaders were booed at rallies in Istanbul and Ankara, after exhorting protesters to focus all energies on the Sunday primaries. They rightly responded that “the solution is in the streets, not in the ballot box”. Similarly, the CHP opposed the protesters’ initiative in Istanbul to march to the central Taksim Square, calling for rallies to remain confined to the Saraçhane area. 

The Kemalists are also incapable of harnessing the energy of the Kurdish people, which will prove crucial in this struggle. Only a few days ago, the CHP mayor of Ankara (a reactionary Turkish nationalist) called the Kurdish flag a “rag”, provoking understandable indignation during the ongoing Kurdish Newroz celebrations, where the message of the CHP general secretary was booed. 

Turkey is entering a decisive struggle. Its outcome will be decided in a battle between living forces. There is the potential to defeat Erdoğan, and the surest way to do so is through mass mobilisation on the streets, organised through committees in every neighbourhood, campus, and workplace. Protests should lead up to a general strike, where the working class can use its immense power to bring the regime down to its knees. The struggle against the Vučić regime in Serbia and against Mitsotakis in Greece should serve as a model. 

Such a movement must be armed with a revolutionary programme for social transformation. Needless to say, such a policy requires a break with the vacillating CHP leaders who will do everything they can to paralyse the struggle. The combative left, the trade unions, and the student movement can only conquer the leadership of the movement if they come out with their own slogans and plan of action. 

Down with the repression!

Free all political prisoners!

Down with the Erdoğan regime!

For mass mobilisations and a general strike!

For workers’ unity around a socialist programme!

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