This profile mirrors and is kept in sync with the Turkey entry in the main guide's case studies.
Overview
Authorities annulled opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu's university degree and arrested him on corruption charges in March 2025, days after he was chosen as the opposition's presidential candidate. He remains jailed awaiting verdicts in a separate mass trial of roughly 400 co-defendants over alleged Istanbul municipality corruption, while a Silivri court separately convicted and sentenced him in September 2026 to two years and one month in prison, with a political ban, over remarks for which he had twice previously been acquitted; the ban cannot take effect until the conviction is final on appeal.
Analytical lens
Concepts on this wiki that help explain this case: Autocratic Legalism, Spin Dictators, Competitive Authoritarianism.