Jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on Sunday accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of being behind the court-ordered takeover of Turkey’s main opposition party and called former party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was returned to party leadership by the court, a “puppet.”
İmamoğlu, the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) presidential candidate and one of Erdoğan’s main rivals, made the remarks after riot police entered CHP headquarters in Ankara to enforce a court ruling that removed party chairman Özgür Özel and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu.
The statement appeared aimed at shifting public anger away from Kılıçdaroğlu alone and toward Erdoğan, whom İmamoğlu accused of using the courts to seize control of the CHP after the party became Turkey’s largest political force in the 2024 local elections.
“The ‘absolute nullity’ ruling against our party’s 38th Ordinary Congress is a palace coup,” İmamoğlu said on X, using a term widely understood in Turkish opposition politics as a reference to Erdoğan and his presidential office.
“Those who gave the order and those who carried it out are clear,” he said.
The Ankara Regional Court of Justice’s 36th Civil Chamber on Thursday annulled the CHP congress held in November 2023, when Özel defeated Kılıçdaroğlu after the opposition’s loss to Erdoğan in that year’s presidential election.
The court declared the congress void due to alleged irregularities and ordered Kılıçdaroğlu and his former party administration to take over on a temporary basis.
Police entered CHP headquarters on Sunday after Özel and party officials refused to leave the building. The intervention turned a legal dispute over the party congress into a fight for physical control of the headquarters of the party established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.
İmamoğlu framed the ruling and the police intervention not as an internal CHP dispute but as an Erdoğan-directed operation carried out through the judiciary.
“Coup-plotter, head of the judicial branch, puppet and internal foe trustee!” İmamoğlu said, using a series of labels for those he accused of taking part in the operation. “You are all in the same place.”
The phrase “internal foe,” or “dahili bedhah” in Turkish, is a reference to Atatürk’s “Address to Turkish Youth,” in which the republic’s founder warned of enemies who could emerge inside the country.
The word “trustee” also carries political weight in Turkey, where the government has removed dozens of elected mayors, especially in Kurdish-majority areas, and replaced them with state-appointed officials.
İmamoğlu said the court had disregarded the will of CHP delegates and voters.
“It is not the CHP leadership they have declared null and void, but the sacred will of the Turkish nation,” he said. “National sovereignty has been compromised through the courts.”
The statement marked one of the sharpest breaks yet between İmamoğlu and Kılıçdaroğlu, a former ally who helped bring him into national politics.
Kılıçdaroğlu, who led the CHP for 13 years, backed İmamoğlu’s rise from district mayor in İstanbul’s Beylikdüzü district to the party’s candidate for İstanbul mayor in 2019.
İmamoğlu’s victory that year ended more than 20 years of rule in Turkey’s largest city by Erdoğan’s party and its Islamist predecessors, making him one of the opposition’s most visible figures.
Their alliance continued into the 2023 presidential election, when a six-party opposition bloc nominated Kılıçdaroğlu as its joint candidate against Erdoğan.
Many opposition voters wanted İmamoğlu or Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş to run, viewing them as stronger challengers to Erdoğan. Meral Akşener, then leader of the nationalist Good Party, briefly left the opposition alliance and called on the two mayors to become presidential candidates.
İmamoğlu and Yavaş instead backed Kılıçdaroğlu. A compromise later named them as potential vice presidents in the event of an opposition victory, along with the leaders of the six parties in the alliance.
Kılıçdaroğlu lost the May 2023 election to Erdoğan, deepening calls for change inside the CHP. Özel then defeated him at the party congress in November 2023, with support from figures close to İmamoğlu.
Under Özel, the CHP won the March 2024 local elections, beating Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) nationwide for the first time since Erdoğan came to power in 2002. The CHP kept İstanbul and Ankara and won several conservative strongholds.
The party has since faced a wave of investigations targeting its municipalities, mayors and officials. İmamoğlu’s arrest in March 2025 triggered Turkey’s largest street protests in years and sent Turkish markets into turmoil.
Hundreds of CHP members and elected officials have been detained or jailed since late 2024 on corruption, terrorism or other charges. The CHP says the cases are politically motivated.
İmamoğlu used his Sunday statement to reaffirm support for Özel, describing him as his “comrade” and party leader.
“I stand with my comrade, my chairman Özgür Özel,” he said. “We will continue the struggle together with determination.”
He also called on other political party leaders to raise their voice, saying the court ruling was not only a CHP issue.
“If you truly believe you represent the nation, you must immediately defend the republic, democracy and justice in the strongest way possible,” he said.
“The issue is not the CHP,” he added. “The nation is calling on all of us and saying: Do it now.”