Dilara Lorin
Since the detention on 19 March of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Turkey in defence of the last sparks of democracy in the country. Despite a nationwide ban on demonstrations, thousands, if not tens of thousands, gather every day, undeterred by the massive police violence, the use of water cannons, pepper spray and arbitrary arrests. In addition, there has been a clampdown on social media and a ban on TV channels broadcasting images of the protests. The arrest of İmamoğlu, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate, could be the spark that ignites a mass movement that can shake and even bring down the rule of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development party (AKP). This is because the development not only expresses a deep political crisis, but it is also taking place against the backdrop of massive economic turmoil.
What has happened?
Ekrem İmamoğlu is considered to be Erdoğan’s most threatening rival in the 2028 presidential elections. He was arrested in two separate investigations. He and 99 other suspects are accused of, among other things, „leading a criminal organisation“, „membership of a criminal organisation“, „extortion“, „bribery“, „qualified fraud“, „unlawful acquisition of personal data“ and „tender manipulation“. In addition, his construction company was confiscated. On Tuesday 18 March, the day before his arrest, he was also stripped of his university degree, officially due to a procedural error. Since a university degree is a requirement for running for president in Turkey(!), this would make it impossible for him to participate in the elections.
In addition, the deputy secretary-general of the Istanbul city council, Mahir Polat, the mayor of the Fatih district, the ancient centre of the city, Resul Emrah Şahan, and five other suspects are under investigation for „supporting the PKK/KCK“ (Kurdistan Workers‘ Party/Union of Kurdish Communities). These charges are presumably related to the 2023 municipal elections, in which the CHP in some regions put up candidates together with the Peoples‘ Equality and Democracy Party, DEM, (since December 2023 successor to HEDEP; Peoples‘ Emancipation and Democracy Party).
Despite these developments, the CHP’s vote for the presidential candidacy took place on Sunday, for which it opened the polls to non-members at short notice. 15 million people cast their votes. The CHP itself has around 1.7 million members. The turnout not only shows that the party has a large following, it also makes it clear that millions used these open elections as a means of mass protest against Erdoğan.
Not an unexpected development
In addition to İmamoğlu, the CHP mayors of Istanbul districts, Resul Emrah Şahan and Mehmet Murat Çalık, were also dismissed by the Ministry of the Interior. The government in Ankara has already appointed an AKP official as the administrator of Şahan’s district. A state representative will also be appointed in the coming days to replace Çalık, the mayor of Beylikdüzü.
The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office is leading the investigation against İmamoğlu. Its chairman, Chief Prosecutor Akın Gürlek, is known for numerous politically motivated proceedings. The opposition refers to him as the „mobile guillotine“ because of his repressive actions against dissidents. Gürlek was, among other things, the judge who handed down the internationally criticised prison sentence against Selahattin Demirtaş former leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP (Peoples‘ Democratic Party).
This approach is politically motivated, but by no means unusual – a glance at Turkey’s overcrowded prisons is enough. Kurdish, pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists in particular have been increasingly targeted in recent years. The removal of Mayor İmamoğlu is not a new experience for many Kurds. Numerous city halls in Turkey are under forced administration. Since the local elections in March last year, 17 mayors have been dismissed, several of whom are already in custody. In the other cases, officials appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, known as trustees, have taken over the official duties.
Municipalities won by the DEM Party have been particularly affected: 12 of the municipalities under forced administration were originally under their leadership, four under that of the CHP. This highlights who has been the focus of criminalisation for years.
From the Gezi Park 2013 protests to today
Protests continue and are met with fierce resistance from the police, despite a ban on demonstrations and gatherings being imposed in the larger cities of western Turkey, including Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, immediately after İmamoğlu’s arrest. Numerous videos show demonstrators fighting against police barricades and setting up road blockades, but also the brutal force with which the police are attacking them. Tear gas is sprayed directly into the faces of protesters at close range, water cannons drench them in the freezing night, and armed police fire rubber bullets while beating demonstrators brutally with batons.
Since the beginning of the protests, more than 1,100 people have been arrested under the pretext of „illegal activity“. Remarks by the interior minister on X, according to which they will not allow „the streets to be terrorised“, make it clear that the state’s repressive machinery is being used in a targeted manner. In the past week alone, more than 40 people were arrested – just for posting on social media platforms that have been blocked by the government in many places. This is just a fraction of the state surveillance. Freedom of the press is also being severely restricted: on Sunday night, ten journalists were detained – another serious blow to freedom of expression and the press.
However, none of this has stopped the masses from fighting their way to the city’s main squares and continuing to gather. In particular, students from the universities are at the forefront of the movement.
First and foremost, students at METU University (ODTÜ; Middle East Technical University in Ankara), known for its traditionally left-wing student body, called for a strike starting on Monday, 24 March and continuing beyond that. Other universities quickly joined. In addition, independent lectures were organised on campus, sometimes in collaboration with professors. However, the call for a strike was not only directed at students, but also at workers and especially the trade unions, with the demand for a general strike. It is mainly the students who are taking more radical and system-critical demands to the streets. In many cities, it is clear from various speeches and from posters and banners that the fight must be waged on the streets and not at the ballot box.
It is hardly surprising that students are at the forefront of these protests. It is the young generation that suffers from high unemployment, a lack of future prospects and an increasingly deteriorating academic education. This is also illustrated by the official unemployment rate, which last year stood at 16.5 per cent for 15-24 year-olds. However, wide layers of the working class are also taking to the streets en masse, as their economic situation has drastically worsened in recent years. This also affects the middle class, which is increasingly slipping down the social ladder. Two out of ten people in Turkey are poor, and in just one year the number of impoverished people rose by 190,000. In addition, one in two people in Turkey is in debt. Together with rising inflation, which is currently at 42.7%, this is accelerating general impoverishment.
Pretty quickly, the voices and slogans grew louder, and they have long been demanding more than just the release of Ekrem İmamoğlu. Today, the calls for the resignation of the government, the resignation of Erdoğan, and for more democratic participation and co-determination are driving people onto the streets and echoing on posters and in slogans. Many protesters draw a direct line to the May 2013 Gezi Park protests. The momentum is in many ways similar to the movement back then: what started as a resistance against the cutting down of trees in Gezi Park quickly ignited a movement for democracy and participation. Similarly, social demands are being raised and the political system is being fundamentally challenged. Although the current wave of protests began with the imprisonment of İmamoğlu, calls for the overthrow of Erdoğan are now growing louder.
At the same time, dissatisfaction with the CHP leadership is growing, particularly among young people. In the social media, many criticise the party’s behaviour in dealing with the demonstrators. The accusation is that the CHP is ultimately leaving the protesters alone. Party representatives are leaving the rallies after inflammatory speeches without actually standing side by side with the people on the streets and barricades against the police.
Build a movement, but no illusions in the CHP
The imprisonment of Ekrem İmamoğlu has sparked a mass democratic movement with enormous potential. At the same time, however, we must not close our eyes to its weaknesses if we want to point the way forward. A central problem is the question of the participation of Kurds. Loud voices within the movement exclude Kurds who show solidarity with the protests – some even call them provocateurs and dividers. This attitude is widespread and is also reflected within the CHP, which has a long tradition of Turkish chauvinism.
On 23 March, Mansur Yavaş, the CHP mayor of Ankara, caused particular outrage with a speech to the demonstrators. He called the Kurdish flags that were waved during the Kurdish New Year and Spring festival of Newroz on Friday „rags“ and deliberately tried to drive a wedge between the Turkish and Kurdish. In doing so, he alluded to an isolated incident in which a police officer distributed candy floss at a Newroz celebration, while at the same time Turkish youths were brutally beaten during the protests – a comparison that completely ignores the numerous detentions during the celebrations. This statement sparked great resentment, particularly among Kurds. At the Newroz celebration in Istanbul on Sunday, which was attended by hundreds of thousands, there were loud protests when a message of greeting from CHP leader Özgür Özel was read out – the crowd booed the speakers.
The issue of the removal and imprisonment of elected mayors actually unites both movements – especially the Kurdish one, which has been experiencing this for almost a decade. Because one thing must be clear: a movement that fights for democratic rights but excludes Kurds cannot win. It is therefore imperative to fight against and break with all forms of Turkish chauvinism in the movement. This applies above all to workers‘ organisations and all leftists, who must play a central role in this. They must enable Kurdish activists to participate with their language, their flags and symbols, and defend them against any attacks. The Turkish working class and the opposition must prove that they are serious by defending the interests of the Kurds on the streets.
The pressure exerted by Kurds in recent days was so great that CHP leader Özgür Özel was ultimately forced to justify himself at a press conference. Even though the apology remained vague, Özel emphasised – which is rare within the CHP – the necessity of a united struggle. This became clear not only in his Newroz greeting, but also at the joint press conference with DEM Party MPs in Istanbul on Monday, 24 March 2025.
However, we must not place our trust in the bourgeois CHP, which has always been fundamentally pro-state, Turkish nationalist and capitalist, in the struggle for state power. Even if many support İmamoğlu in order to finally get rid of Erdoğan, he would by no means be a president for the masses but would also try to strengthen Turkey as a regional power and solve the crisis at the expense of the masses. And wasn’t it the CHP that, in 2016, supported the lifting of the immunity of numerous HDP MPs with its votes, thus enabling their imprisonment? Was it not the CHP that led a smear campaign against refugees ahead of the municipal and presidential elections? And was it not the CHP that has repeatedly stabbed the workers‘ movement in the back?
Revolutionaries should take to the streets against the forced administration and removal of the mayors – but not foster any illusions in the CHP. Ultimately, it only defends the interests of a different section of the bourgeoisie, not those of the working and oppressed sections of the population. Nor should we have any illusions in the DEM Party, which itself supports Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK’s completely illusory „reconciliation policy“ with the „democrat“ Erdoğan.
General strike against the attacks on democratic rights
İmamoğlu’s imprisonment and the repression of protests and media coverage represents a massive attack on democratic rights in Turkey. Basically, it is an arbitrary act by the judiciary to preventively eliminate a promising opposition candidate. Erdoğan, the AKP and the governing coalition are obviously not willing to be voted out through the bourgeois parliamentary system. Until now, this form of repression was mainly directed at Kurdish and left-wing parties, but now the state apparatus is clearly signalling: the bourgeois, nationalist opposition will also be eliminated if it should become an electoral challenge.
Turkish democracy, largely a farce in any case, is now being revealed for what it is in the eyes of millions – a plebiscite for the pseudo-democratic legitimisation of Erdoğan’s Bonapartist rule. This is also to be cemented by a constitutional amendment, for which the AKP needs a three-fifths majority in parliament. This would allow him to run for president again in 2028. It is also possible that, after eliminating his most promising rival, he will bring forward the elections in order to give his authoritarian rule a plebiscitary veneer.
But the fact that the AKP government has to rely on naked repression and an increasingly synchronised state apparatus to counter the movement also reveals a weakness. Its support is crumbling, its social base is being undermined because, despite all its regional power ambitions and dreams of a new „Ottomanism“, it cannot get a grip on the economy.
This is leading to the impoverishment of workers, the decline of the middle classes and the petty bourgeoisie, but also to discontent among the bourgeoisie itself. This is also expressed in the multi-class character of the movement and protests, which is of course reinforced by the role of the CHP. And that is why it is all the more important not only that the working class and youth mobilise but also fight to give the movement a class-struggle orientation. And tactics. It is therefore essential that they do not leave the leading role to the CHP, or to petty-bourgeois forces.
Of course, this includes continuing the mobilisation on the streets. However, the government’s dictatorial attack will not be stopped by demonstrations alone or by street fighting with the police. To break the government’s elimination of the opposition through arbitrary state violence, to win the release of İmamoğlu and all other prisoners and the dropping of all charges against the opposition, in other words to avert the preventive strike against all opposition, a movement is needed that is rooted in the workplaces, a general strike and mass occupations of universities and other institutions.
The trade unions have an important role to play here. They must be called upon to call and organise such a nationwide general strike. In order to broaden and defend it, or even to enforce it against the resistance of the bureaucracy, assemblies are needed in all workplaces and strike committees elected to lead this struggle. Given that large sections of the working class in Turkey are not organised at all, this is also a way of actively involving the unorganised in the movement.
Such strike committees must be coordinated nationwide and, together with local action committees in the neighbourhoods and smaller communities, centralised to lead the action. Especially in the face of repression, it is necessary to form self-defence units, embryonic workers‘ militias, to defend the general strike and to agitate amongst the lower ranks of the police and army to refuse to act against such a movement.
Such a movement would not only answer the question of power that Erdoğan has raised by arresting the opposition, it would also pose it in Turkey itself. Therefore, the movement cannot and must not be limited to immediate democratic issues, but a general strike must take up the question of the right of self-determination of oppressed nations, first and foremost the Kurds, social and economic demands, and the struggle for workers‘ control.
Above all, however, it must be realised that a general strike revolutionises the struggle and raises the question of which class should rule and reorganise society in its own interests. Therefore, it must be linked not only to the overthrow of Erdoğan, but also to the struggle for a workers‘ government, because should the movement expand and deepen, a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation can quickly arise in Turkey. However, this also poses an enormous challenge for the radical, revolutionary left and the entire workers‘ movement – it must fight for a revolutionary programme of action leading to socialist revolution, and it must now set about building a political force that will fight for it: a revolutionary workers‘ party.