Former President Abdullah Gül, Erdogan’s former long-term political ally, intervened to remind Erdogan that he had also been arrested and sent to prison in the past.
“What has been done to President Tayyip Erdogan and me in the past should not be done to Ekrem Imamolu. We must not lose the rule of law and justice; otherwise Türkiye will lose,” Gül said.
In 1998, Erdogan was found guilty of inciting religious hatred and was banned from politics after reciting poetry while he was mayor of Istanbul.
What’s going to happen now?
The Turkish constitution limits the president to two terms, with Erdogan’s current term ending in 2028. If Congress called for an early election, 71-year-old Erdogan could legally run again before he finished his second term.
Erdogan’s Gambit is considered the only unified candidate who can beat him in the presidential election, so he believes Erdogan’s Gambit is going to early elections without facing Imamoal. (Erdogan says he won’t fight any more elections, but he has a track record of pretending to step back from politics, and his words have not been taken seriously by most Turks.)
Imamol won three hard-fought contests to run Türkiye’s biggest city. Last year, CHP was able to overturn some of the traditional districts of Istanbul.
The Erdogan government says the investigation is not politically motivated, but the entire crisis is caused by “corruption within the CHP.”
