Turkish Cypriot politicians on Wednesday decried the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci was among the first to react to Imamoglu’s arrest, being the first among many to charge that the arrest was politically motivated, and comparing the incident to his loss to Ersin Tatar at the 2020 Turkish Cypriot leadership election.
“In 2020, they were able to control the electorate in the TRNC, which is much smaller than that of Turkey, by means of pressure, threats, blackmail, profiteering, and various tricks, and achieve the result they wanted. However, it is not possible to control millions of voters in Turkey as it is in Cyprus,” he began.
“Therefore, they want to finish the job with a judicial coup,” he said, before comparing the incident to the failed coup d’état which was staged in Turkey in 2016.
“On the night of July 15, 2016, we stood by democracy against the military coup attempt. On the morning of March 19, 2025, we stand by democracy, those who came to power by popular vote,” he said.
He added, “I use the word ‘we’ because I am aware that these thoughts reflect the feelings of the vast majority of the Turkish Cypriot community.
“Everything has an end. Of course, oppression, injustice, and the antidemocratic order will come to an end.”
Opposition party CTP leader Tufan Erhurman, Tatar’s most likely challenger at this October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election, reacted in fewer words, writing, “in our country, in Turkey, and everywhere in the world, we stand for democracy, the rule of law, human rights and freedoms, and peace”.
Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci said that “at this point, there is a need more than ever for Turkey’s legal system to act within the responsibility of a fair trial and carry out a transparent and accountable process”.
He added, “when law and justice have become an apparatus which makes decisions in line with orders sent from the government, democracy is being read its last rites”.
Imamoglu had earlier in the day been arrested on suspicion of having “led a criminal organisation” and “aided a terrorist group” two days before his party the CHP was set to name him as its candidate to challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the country’s next presidential election.
He was one of 106 people, mostly public figures, to be arrested at dawn.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel described Imamoglu’s arrest as a “coup d’état against our next president”.
“Making decisions on behalf of the people, using force to replace the will of the people or to obstruct it is a coup d’état. There is currently a force in place preventing the nation from determining its next president.
“Our nation loves its state, but if someone tries to turn the state against the nation, the nation will not allow it.”
Turkish ruling alliance party MHP leader Devlet Bahceli dismissed talk of a coup d’état, however, saying, “to denigrate a legal measure by calling it a coup d’état and to prepare the quest to take to the streets is a political corruption which has gone mad and has lost its concept of reason and morality”.
He added that he has “full confidence” in the judiciary.
Meanwhile, the Istanbul provincial governor’s office announced that all meetings, demonstrations, and press conferences within the province have been banned until March 23 at the earliest, but this did not stop thousands of university students from taking to the city’s streets on Wednesday afternoon.
The arrest and subsequent sequence of events comes hour after Imamoglu’s degree was on Tuesday revoked by Istanbul University over a report which found that the university in northern Cyprus at which he began his studies before transferring to Istanbul was not adequately recognised.
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