The spotlight has been on Ekrem İmamoğlu for the past few hours in Turkish media following his victory in the second consecutive electoral battle for the mayorship of Istanbul, a municipality that has been a stronghold of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. İmamoğlu didn’t won by a narrow margin as predicted by polls but achieved a clear victory with over 11 points ahead of the candidate of the ruling party (AKP).
As reported by Reuters, İmamoğlu’s victory now positions him as the primary contender for Erdoğan’s hegemony, with observations that he somehow follows in the footsteps of the current Turkish president.
Apart from both having served as mayors of Istanbul, Erdoğan and İmamoğlu have family roots in the eastern Black Sea region, faced legal obstacles, and were both skilled footballers in their youth.
In the mid-1990s, the then-mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had visited the restaurant run by a young İmamoğlu in the Güngören neighborhood. İmamoğlu described his significant political opponent as “having eaten meatballs in my restaurant. He didn’t pay. He won’t settle this bill as long as he lives.”
Despite their commonalities, however, there are significant differences in how they perceive politics, or as İmamoğlu himself has said, “our ideology is completely different.”
Erdoğan entered politics with an Islamic party and since 2002 has transformed the secular state by implementing his vision, whereas the current mayor of Istanbul comes from the staunchly secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), joining in 2008 and achieving his first electoral success in the municipality of Beylikdüzü two years later, in 2010.
According to analysts, İmamoğlu’s success, who is currently considered the most likely future presidential candidate for Turkey, is attributed to his ability to break the electoral ceiling of 25% for the CHP and to attract more conservative voters.
The greater proof of İmamoğlu’s political acumen was his victory in Istanbul in 2019, when he forced Erdoğan into “his biggest defeat in two decades,” something he repeated on Sunday. And while Erdoğan returned with a victory in the 2023 national elections despite the extensive economic crisis in Turkey, as noted by Reuters, İmamoğlu scored a new blow for the opposition.
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The different victory in 2024
Yesterday’s victory, as analysts note, had a fundamental difference compared to 2019, as back then it was supported by an opposition party alliance, which, however, collapsed last year after the defeat in the general elections, with İmamoğlu stating that his victory in 2024 came from “a strong alliance of conscience, created by millions of people thirsty for democracy and justice.”
According to the head of the polling company Metropoll, Özer Sencar, “if these elections are not somehow canceled by objections, (İmamoğlu) will become president in 2028.”
Legal troubles
İmamoğlu’s journey so far has not been without disruptions, mainly due to the Turkish judiciary, which has put him under scrutiny several times. Even after his victory in Istanbul in 2019, a judge sentenced him to 2-1/2 years in prison, imposing a deprivation of political rights pending the decision of the appeals court, to which İmamoğlu has appealed.
As Reuters recalls, in 1999 Erdoğan was imprisoned for a poem he recited, when a court ruled that he incited religious hatred.
Last year, a court began investigating allegations of bid-rigging at the end of 2015 when he was mayor of Beylikdüzü, with the current mayor of Istanbul being threatened with up to 7 years in prison.
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Trabzon
Imamoglu was born in 1971 in the province of Trabzon, describing his childhood as a time surrounded by “lush nature, the wild sea, and stone streets.”
He then studied at the University of Constantinople, graduating from the Department of Business Administration in 1994, the same year Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected mayor. Afterwards, he got involved in his family’s construction business, and he is married with three children.
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