On 19 March 2025, Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul, from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), a social-democrat organisation, was arrested by police in a dawn raid on his home. His university graduation certificate was revoked unlawfully one day before. Just a few hours after the news broke that he was arrested, Istanbul university students pushed a police barricade back and marched towards the mayor’s office.
The CHP called a demonstration the same evening and tens of thousands of people gathered. The next day the crowd grew to hundreds of thousands, although such demonstrations have been declared illegal by the government. Demonstrations started to spread across Turkey’s cities and all major universities. In the first few days, the police were hesitant to intervene in Istanbul but in other cities they used brutal force against students and demonstrators. Students of ODTU (Middle East Technical University), who have a revolutionary history and traditions, in the capital city Ankara, were subjected to brutal police violence with tear gas and rubber bullets. Despite the official bans and police violence, the movement got bigger and bigger everywhere for six days. During the weekend, more than a million people gathered around Saraçhane in Istanbul. The police waited until the end of the meeting and attacked young people who wanted to march towards Taksim Square. Around 1,500 people were arrested, and 300 sent to prison, most of them young people or students.
The movement was not merely a reaction to the arrest of İmamoğlu. The students and youth took the streets and university campuses with their own agenda. The people raised their voices for justice, freedom of speech, freedom of press and against worsening economic conditions, huge inflation, low wages, unemployment, nepotism, corruption and dictatorship. People chanted slogans like “government, resign”, “dictator Erdoğan”, “down with fascism!”, “we are not afraid!” and “free İmamoğlu!”
The most common slogan was “No freedom for one; either all of us or none of us”. There were calls for a general strike and general resistance by the people on the streets but the trade union confederations did not call for mobilisation although they declared support. They seemed to think that a call for a general strike would not be implementable.
The mayor was accused of corruption, bribery and being leader of a criminal organisation. Two other mayors of districts and many members of his team were also arrested; in total, more than 100 people. It is quite obvious that most of these accusations, true or false, were fabricated, as the main aim of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, was to eliminate his strongest potential rival in the next presidential election.
İmamoğlu has an annoying history for Erdoğan. He, as the CHP candidate for mayor of Istanbul won against Erdoğan’s Justice and Development (AKP) party. Despite AKP efforts to tarnish his reputation, İmamoğlu’s CHP won the local elections in March 2024 by more than one million votes. The CHP won all the largest cities and even in some cities in middle Anatolia where the AKP had always won historically. The May 2023 presidential election was won by Erdoğan, although almost all surveys before were suggesting that candidate of CHP would win by more than 5 per cent.
Erdoğan has not been keen on an early presidential election. The CHP on the other hand had already started its campaign around İmamoğlu. The CHP had decided to arrange a primary election to choose its candidate on March 23. Erdoğan took the initiative to prevent İmamoğlu being a candidate and he ordered an investigation over the Imamoglu’s graduation diploma, cancelling it on March 18 and ordering an arrest on March 19. Erdoğan is able to give orders to the prosecutors, judges and courts to do things as he wishes. The public widely distrusts the judicial system, seeing it as a tool of government repression. The accusations made against İmamoğlu, even if some of them are true, are not believed by the majority of the public. According to recent surveys, trust in the judicial system is very low around 20% .
Turkey’s political system has long been undemocratic, failing to meet even low European standards. But it has turned into an open dictatorship in the last 15 years or so. Erdoğan was prime minister for 11 years between 2003 and 2014, when Turkey had a parliamentary system; the presidency was more like a ceremonial position. But when Erdoğan was elected as president in 2014 he acted like a prime minister.
In 2017, Erdoğan called a referendum to change the system from a parliamentary to an “executive presidency” with extraordinary powers. He won the referendum as the Supreme Election Council accepted 1.5-2.5 million unstamped ballots (the exact number was not disclosed). Currently he is trying to make sure that he can continue ruling. He does not want to leave the power he has consolidated and the financial benefits he and the AKP have amassed.
Five corporations, who are called a “gang of five” and very close to Erdoğan, have been receiving state tenders of mega projects worth millions of dollars and have been given many tax amnesties and breaks. The relationship between the bourgeoisie and Erdoğan has always been good up until recently. He has always followed free market rules during his time as ruler.
Erdoğan has portrayed himself as a religious leader, who defends the idea of a just world. He has also confected an image of being an anti-imperialist, with rhetoric aimed against the USA, Israel and the EU. But Erdoğan has continued trade with Israel, even during the Gaza genocide; allowed military bases to be used by USA for its bloody Middle East operations; and did not hesitate to take EU money in exchange for keeping migrants in Turkey.
Erdoğan’s popularity has been decreasing in surveys and the economic crisis has been worsening. His undemocratic practices have been harsher in the recent years. Protesters from 2013 have been given long prison sentences. Many journalists have been taken to court and some imprisoned for years. Erdoğan himself has sued social media users for writing alleged insults to the president.
The state, since the 1980 coup d’etat, has always oppressed socialists, the socialist press, or socialist cultural organisations. The radical/revolutionary socialist movement was quite large during the 1990s but after imprisoning thousands of revolutionaries, putting them in isolation cells and killing many of them during the resistance and hunger strikes, the state managed to limit the revolutionary movements by mid-2000s.
Erdoğan and the AKP ‘own’ the majority of TV stations and newspapers and ‘own’ the judicial system. They targeted the CHP by labelling it as terrorist. Despite the power in its hands, the AKP keeps losing votes and had to make alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) whose leader was previously making insulting speeches about the president.
Currently, it looks as if the dictatorship is in its last stage, especially after the uprising ignited by the arrest of İmamoğlu. The people feel again that they can mobilise and protest despite the years of oppression and official bans on protests. The youth does not want to stop or slow down and they want to change the regime or at least topple Erdoğan. The CHP is in a position that either it slows down and Erdoğan buries them under the ground, or it has to keep fighting back and win. The CHP keeps organising large demonstrations every week and each one gathers thousands of people. The university campuses have become meeting places for revolutionary student groups, as well as masses of previously apolitical young people.
However, almost two months on from the arrest of İmamoğlu, the student movement seems to be slowing down and the CHP meetings are also beginning to subside. However, the courage to fight back has resurfaced among people and is still there. The CHP is calling for an early re-election although the AKP-MHP alliance has a parliamentary majority and does not want a re-election. The alliance is taking steps for a ‘peace’ with the Kurdish people (although many are very suspicious about this) and wants to add the Kurdish Party, DEM, to the alliance. If that happens it would make it more difficult for CHP to win the next election.
The people, the working class, Turks and Kurds, are fed up with the dictatorship and are very keen to topple Erdoğan. The uprisings are, however, unpredictable especially if there is no revolutionary leadership. It is difficult for Erdoğan to win more elections as the economy and democracy in Turkey are in a terrible state. It is very promising that the young seem able to stand up for their rights and for a better future. Hopefully they would see during their continuing struggle that a better future is not possible under capitalism and the only solution is socialism.