Turkey’s interior ministry has provided the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office with the required permission to prosecute the city's opposition mayor, Mansur Yavas, government-run news service Anadolu Agency reported on November 22.

Yavas is seen by many observers as the politician who should step into Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu's shoes as the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate to run against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the presidency should Imamoglu, himself jailed on corruption charges since mid-March, prove unable to continue as the candidate.

Since February, the tentacles of the Turkish government's judicial operations have reached far into multiple areas of politics and business. Every day, people are arrested and companies are seized. For each arrest, or seizure of a municipality, various reasons are stated, but the cases are generally seen by the CHP as political and as instigated only with the authority of Erdogan.

Two most popular

Yavas and Imamoglu are the CHP's two most popular mayors by a long stretch. There was a debate in the party over whether it should be Yavas or Imamoglu who should be nominated to run for the presidency. However, Imamoglu is seen as Erdogan's chief political rival and, in March, the CHP moved towards naming him as its candidate. Soon after, following a dawn police raid on his home, he was jailed. Nevertheless, the CHP went ahead and named him as the candidate.

However, the authorities have pulled another tactic from their sleeve. Imamoglu was stripped of his university diploma, with spurious claims that it was invalid under the law. A presidential candidate is required to have a higher education degree.

Fusion of power

On October 21, the 34th Ankara (Agir Ceza) Heavy Penal Court permitted the Ankara prosecutors to pursue a corruption investigation.

In October, bne Intellinews reported that Yavas was risking trial after the city’s public prosecutors filed an application at the interior ministry for permission to investigate him.

Turkey works to a fusion-of-power regime. The application made by the prosecutors at the executive body was just a formality. 

“Imamoglu is sat in jail... Now it is Yavas’ chance to read the Erdogan script, stay smart and keep away from any suggestion of a run for the crown. Very likely, the only alternative is his own appointment with the jailer,” this publication noted.

Reality behind the political theatre

Beyond the Bosporus writes: The CHP neglects the reality of the country. The reality is that there is a fusion of power. To acknowledge things as they actually are, the CHP would be confirming that in essence their existence, their activities are nonsensical. The way the regime is formulated, there is no place for a real opposition in the country’s political theatre.

“We will appeal to the Council of State in the shortest time possible by exercising our legal right,” Yavas (@mansuryavas06) wrote in a tweet following the move in relation to him. “The Council of State will most likely halt the execution of this process anyway,” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel told reporters.

Reality may very well say otherwise.

Ozel to play new Kilicdaroglu

The CHP’s presidential candidate sits in jail. The man perhaps most suited to take up the baton is under threat of jail. What is it that Erdogan wants this time? Many speculate that he desires to see Ozel made his challenger in the next election, viewing him as ineffectual.

Since 2015, offical election outcomes in Turkey have always delivered a tiny majority keeping Erdogan in power. In the Istanbul city election contest in 2019, Imamoglu challenged the official result that gave Erdogan's man the win. Successfully. The sense grew that he was on course to repeat such defiance in a presidential election, this time at Erdogan's personal expense. Hence his current predicament in a cell.

Unlike with predecessor as CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, it is anticipated that Ozel would kick up a stink should he feel cheated of an election win. However, a repeat of anything like the Istanbul 2019 scenario would not be on the cards.