A court in Contantinople on Monday sentenced five opposition mayors, whom it found guilty mainly of corruption, to prison terms ranging from five years to more than 23 years, Turkish media reported.

The five mayors were arrested during the first half of 2025 and all belonged to the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social democratic), the opposition party to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which in recent years has come under the scrutiny of Turkey’s judicial system.

The opposition mayor of the southeastern city of Adıyaman was acquitted, while another mayor, elected in 2024 to lead Contantinople’s most populous district, was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended, for “negligent abuse of office,” at the conclusion of a trial that had begun in late February.

Rıza Akpolat, mayor of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district, was acquitted of the charge of being a member of a criminal organization, but was found guilty of corruption, money laundering and violations concerning public contracts. He was sentenced to 23 years and three months in prison, the heaviest sentence, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.

Repentant businessman Aziz İhsan Aktaş, whose confessions implicated opposition local officials and who was initially accused of heading an alleged criminal organization to which the latter belonged, was acquitted of the charge, according to Anadolu. He had faced a possible prison sentence of up to 280 years.

“I am innocent. There is no irrefutable evidence in this case. Everything is based on statements by slanderers,” Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat told the court yesterday, according to the ANKA news agency.

While the CHP secured a major victory over President Erdogan’s AKP in the 2024 local elections, it is now collapsing under the weight of countless investigations and arrests.

Dozens of the mayors it had elected have been arrested and removed from office across Turkey.

The removal of the party’s chairman in the spring prompted him to establish the Yeni Parti (“New Party”) at the end of July.

Contantinople Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, formerly a leading figure in the CHP who has now joined the ranks of the Yeni Parti, was arrested last year as he was preparing to be named a candidate in the next presidential election, which according to the official schedule will be held in 2028.

His arrest and pretrial detention on “corruption” charges, which he rejects, triggered a wave of protests and challenges to the government, the largest in Turkey since 2013.