Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in Istanbul on Friday in support of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – Erdogan’s chief political rival – who was detained on Wednesday, just days before he was to be formally named as a candidate in Turkey’s 2028 presidential election. The protestors marched despite a warning that authorities will crack down on “street terrorism”.
Update today Third day : Locations and numbers of Anti-Erdogan protests by Turkish people (source )
What if the plot isn’t about locking up the opposition leader, but about luring out his most vocal supporters? It is much easier to keep anonymous civilians in jail, as opposed to the leader of a movement. I feel like just locking up Imoglu is just too stupid a move to make.
Well, looks like they just found a hundred thousand or more. Time to lock them up?
Never underestimate people’s stupidity ^^
I called CHP’s candidate nomination votes a dumb move back in the day, since the sole candidate to vote for was announced to be Imamoglu. Since the next president election was dating all the way to 2028, I thought there was no point in voting towards a single candidate, what would that show?
That was until Imamoglu’s arrest. With that move Erdogan has managed to unify all opposing parties to rally behind Imamoglu. CHP, the lead opposition party can show the support behind Imamoglu via sheer numbers to push for an early election.
push for an early election.
Its still up to Erdogan to decide
There exists plenty of ways to push for an early election. Easiest way I can see is resigning around 30 parliament members; which according to the law starts an early party election.
I didn’t know that, thanks for this. Is it likely to happen though, or are the parliament members in AKP all true loyalists?
They do not need AKP at all to trigger an early election this way. Even parties like HDP and IYI have 30 parliament members, CHP is the leading opposition party so definetly can. Typically using this response without any reason will make the party lose votes, so it is reserved for emergencies.
However, this is an emergency situation. CHP can use this method at any time, however visualising the support before doing so could help a lot with the votes.
fantastic context, thanks
