All the world’s a stage and nothing more so than the platform on which Turkey’s so-called democracy plays out. Right now, those who tread the boards are acting out yet another exasperating script, with the latest farce following in the wake of June 7 by-elections held in six “beldeler”, large villages with muncipalities.
As usual, the poll outcomes have been decried by officials of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) officials as an instance of the government “stealing” mandates. The real significance in scenes such as this, however, lies not in the ballot irregularities, but in the role the CHP plays in legitimising the entire spectacle.
Based on legislation passed in 2012, the six locations were stripped of their municipality status and downgraded to mere villages because their populations had fallen below the 2,000-threshold. Subsequent to court proceedings, the villages were restored as beldeler, meaning by-elections were required.
Posing as competitive authoritarianism
For decades, the CHP has stuck to a well-documented approach of institutional passivity when it comes to systemic electoral schemes. That is the case even though its structural compliance plays into the hands of the ruling apparatus.
In fact, the CHP participates vigorously in what are compromised races, acting as if fair ballots are possible and circulating the narrative that Turkey still holds meaningful, authentic elections.
It is thanks to the docile, obedient CHP’s exits and entrances on the stage that the mainstream (media, academics and so forth) can go on describing the country’s political regime as an instance of competitive authoritarianism.
“Transported” voters
These recent micro-elections provide a clear look at this dynamic. According to data provided by Gokhan Zeybek (@gokanzeybekCHP), an MP and senior party executive who serves as the CHP deputy chair “in charge of local governments and resilient cities”, voter registrations in the six small localities spiked from 4,275 in the 2024 elections to 10,791 by May 2026.
The mechanism that achieved this is clear. There was systemic “transporting” of outside voters executed by local civil registries and state district governors (kaymakam) that effectively diluted the native electorates to guarantee government-preferred outcomes.
Invitation to “perform”
To the outside observer, glaring statistical anomalies such as those described would render an election functionally “faked”. To the CHP, however, the poll results amounted to an invitation to “perform”.
Instead of withdrawing from clearly rigged contests or mounting a coherent systemic challenge, the party's leadership treated the polls with the gravitas worthy of real democratic battles.
Ozgur Ozel – who in May was ousted from his chairmanship of the CHP by a court order that reinstated his predecessor – held high-profile rallies in the beldeler. Sycophants and loyalists lined up to praise his leadership.
Nobody at the election regulator
Observers were treated to another energetic campaign performance that effectively masked the complete lack of institutional pushback from the CHP. The party in fact plugged into the elections without even a single official representative present at the Supreme Election Council, or YSK.
The party’s representative Hadimi Yakupoglu had been dismissed on May 22 by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the former CHP leader who the day before replaced Ozel by court order.
No more than a safety valve
The CHP’s response to the predictable ballot box defeat highlighted how it plays the sustained role of safety valve for public frustration. With the elections lost, Zeybek and other party officials publicly stated that the elections were stolen.
Yet, rather than demanding systemic reform or legal accountability, they starkly and explicitly left further responsibility to the “conscience of society”.
“The election boards have not taken into account the objections raised. Under these conditions, if the outcome is the ‘national will,’ then we call it the national will. We are recording what happened and leaving it to the discretion of the public conscience,” Zeybek wrote in a tweet.
Manufacture hope. Lose. Repeat
The cycle of manufacturing hope among the electorate in an engineered system is central to the CHP’s actual role in Turkey’s political system. Even as the party validates orchestrated losses in local elections, Ozel maintains his regular refrain that the CHP candidate will comfortably win the next presidential election.
By constantly pointing to a future democratic victory that is coming within grasp, the CHP keeps voters engaged in the voting process. To a regime reliant on maintaining the appearance of a pluralistic democracy for onlooking international markets and domestic audiences, the CHP’s willingness to play its part remains its greatest asset.
Friends in high places
Tweet: This European democratic party is a serious force that will stop the renaissance of fascism on the continent.
The role that CHP plays in Turkey’s political system is on reflection a global phenomenon. Wherever a Nazi Party rises in the world, there is a Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) on hand to provide assistance while playing the opposition.
Was it not the high and mighty Democratic Party of the US that nominated a man who was not able to talk or walk against Donald Trump, in whose name an angry mob of supporters took part in an organised assault against Congress that cost five lives?
Ekrem Imamoglu, the jailed mayor of Istanbul and presumptive presidential challenger to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, levelled fresh allegations of physical and psychological mistreatment against government authorities during another tense court hearing held on June 9 at Silivri prison complex in Istanbul.
Addressing the court, Imamoglu claimed that gendarmerie officers pushed him over on some stairs.
“Who pushed me?”
During the lunch break of the day-long hearing, an altercation reportedly occurred between Imamoglu and gendarmerie personnel. Media reports suggested that, while Imamoglu was heading downstairs, he called out to the court audience: “Full steam ahead!”
Reported accounts said that at this moment, Imamoglu stumbled after an intervention by the gendarmerie and looked as though he was about to fall. Reacting to what he described as a push from behind on the stairs as he was being escorted out of the courtroom, Imamoglu said: “Was it you who just pushed me? Insolent. Commander, I was on the point of falling down the stairs. Who just pushed me? You lied when you said ‘the vehicle is broken down’ [A reference to another incident, explained below]. Now you are doing the exact same thing again. Do not do it again. I will file a criminal complaint against you. You cannot prevent me from speaking.”
In response, the head of the gendarmerie personnel replied: “This is not the place to speak.”
Imamoglu responded: “This is precisely the place to speak. If you did not see what happened, we are reporting it to you, commander. I am reporting it to you. They pushed me from behind in a reckless manner. I am relaying this to you.”
Complaint from wife
Imamoglu’s wife, Dilek Kaya Imamoglu, also reacted to the apparent push, stating: “This behaviour directed at my dear husband, Ekrem Imamoglu, is grave disrespect aimed not just at an individual, but at the rule of law, human dignity and the sense of justice.”
“The Republic of Turkey is a state governed by the rule of law and the law must be enforced,” she added in a written statement.
“It is unacceptable to intervene in a manner that could cause a person to fall and then to act as if it never happened. We will not allow the normalisation of any practice where the law is suspended and human dignity is devalued. We will never give up on the struggle for a Turkey where justice operates equally for everyone and where no one’s dignity is trampled upon,” Dilek Kaya Imamoglu also said.
“Psychological torture”
The courtroom outburst is the latest in a series of highly specific grievances raised by Imamoglu and his legal team regarding their treatment in Turkey's penal system.
On June 5, the mayor lodged a formal complaint regarding a disrupted 120-kilometre (75-mile) transit that was to take him from high-security Silivri prison to Kartal courthouse on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.
The trip was arranged to transport Imamoglu to a hearing in a separate trial in which he is accused of insulting the former mayor of Tuzla district in Istanbul during a ceremony held in 2023. Imamoglu was twice acquitted of the charge, but a higher regional court returned the file to the first instance court for a retrial.
Imamoglu claimed that the transit was turned back on the road because of what authorities claimed was a vehicle breakdown. It meant taking a gruelling circuitous journey and frustrating logistics that the mayor explicitly felt was a form of “psychological torture”.
Vehicle turned around
After he was returned to Silivri prison, Imamoglu attended the hearing via the video call system known as the SEGBIS in Turkey. He explained to the hearing what had happened and refused to deliver his defence. The hearing was then ended, with a next hearing date of September 11 assigned.
“I was taken from my ward at 07:20 AM and escorted out of the prison at 07:30 AM,” he said.
The vehicle came to a halt after around 60 kilometres. The hood was opened and an inspection took place before the journey resumed. Imamoglu later noticed that the vehicle was turning back.
“I asked what was happening. I wasn’t even given any information. Later, I was told that the vehicle had broken down and that was why we were turning back. I said, ‘Wait a minute, what are you doing? If it has broken down, why are we turning back? How can returning in a faulty vehicle be the solution?’” he told the court.
“I said I needed to go to the toilet, but the instruction was, ‘Let him wait,’” he also claimed.
Systematic “torture” allegations
The allegations made do not only concern the mayor. In June 2025, as claims over the alleged treatment of alleged participants in an “Imamoglu Crime Syndicate” proliferated, Imamoglu (@CBAdayOfisi) wrote in a tweet that jailed female Istanbul municipality officials, detained due to alleged associations with him, were subject to systematic torture.
According to Imamoglu, the aim was to turn all suspects into “confessors” by exerting pressure and resorting to blackmail, threats and torture.
Some suspects have complained that they have been subject to hunger, handcuffing for long hours and small, crowded and dirty cells with no air and filled with cigarette smoke.
They have also described insults thrown at them and transfers made to distant prisons, with access to lawyer and family member visits consequently cut or restricted. It is alleged that suspects were transferred in one square-metre cages while in handcuffs.
Other complaints have included:
- Prisoners made to sleep on the floor,
- Subjecting of a multiple sclerosis patient to a police van interior as hot as 40 degrees Celcius during a transfer to a a courthouse,
- Patients with mortality risks kept in prison conditions.
- People kept in cells with burst sewers.
- Cancer patients subjected to conditions that mean they are regularly hospitalised.
Turkey is not unfamiliar with allegations of torture. Typically, files on such claims are either closed or never progressed in the first place.
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