A Turkish appeals court on Friday upheld a prison sentence and political ban for jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, in a case widely seen as politically motivated, the Anka news agency reported.
İmamoğlu, a leading figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was sentenced in late 2022 to two years, seven months in prison and barred from politics for four years for allegedly insulting members of Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK).
The İstanbul mayor was tried for publicly stating that the people who annulled the initial 2019 local election, when he for the first time won against the candidate of the ruling party, were “fools.” However, the mayor said at the trial that his words, which came in response to a question from a reporter, were not aimed at YSK officials but at then-interior minister Süleyman Soylu, who in an earlier statement used the same word against him.
İmamoğlu won by a larger margin in a repeat election the same year when the first poll was annulled due to alleged irregularities.
The mayor appealed the sentence handed down to him by an İstanbul court in December 2022.
If his sentence is also upheld by the country’s top appeals court, the Supreme Court of Appeals, the ruling could sideline İmamoğlu, seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival, from political life ahead of the next presidential election scheduled for 2028.
The popular mayor, who faces multiple investigations, was arrested in March as part of a corruption probe, the same month he was named his party’s presidential candidate. His arrest, which led to protests unseen in Turkey since the mass anti-government protests of 2013, came as part of an ongoing crackdown on the CHP, which has been going on for about a year.
Since last year’s local elections, when the CHP emerged as the country’s leading party, more than 500 people linked to the party or the İstanbul Municipality have also been detained or arrested.
The CHP and its supporters say the investigations are aimed at sidelining opposition politicians and discrediting the party in the eyes of the public after the party’s electoral gains.
Erdoğan and his government argue that the investigations into CHP mayors and officials are conducted based on law, denying allegations of political interference.