After the shocking March imprisonment of Erdoğan's main rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, the crackdown on the opposition has become an internal Turkish problem. Imamoğlu is in prison, and it is unclear when his trial will take place.

However, the drama, which borders on tragedy, occasionally turns into farce. This shows that rumors of the death of Turkish democracy are still exaggerated, even though everyone has been preparing for the funeral for 15 years.

Over the past six months, Erdoğan has seemed to have reversed last year's opposition victory, winning local elections and bringing most of the country's municipalities under the control of the secular Republican People's Party. After Imamoğlu, the following were arrested and removed from office:

Adana Mayor Zeydan Karalar,

Antalya Mayor Muhittin Böcek,

Istanbul Şişli District Mayor Resul Emrah Şahin,

Istanbul Beşiktaş District Mayor Rıza Akpolat,

Istanbul Beylikdüzü District Mayor Mehmet Murat Çalık,

Mayor of Istanbul's Beykoz district Alaattin Köseler,

Mayor of Istanbul's Avcılar district Utku Caner Çaykar,

Mayor of Istanbul's Gaziosmanpaşa district Hakan Bahçetepe,

Mayor of Istanbul's Şili district Özgür Kabadayı.

Even before Imamoğlu's arrest, the mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district, Ahmet Ozer, was imprisoned, thus removing a third of Istanbul's opposition mayors from office (the metropolis consists of 39 districts, each of which elects its own mayor; since last year, the opposition has taken control of 25 mayoralties, 14 remain with Erdoğan's party, and now 8 opposition mayors are in prison).

The purge was then expanded nationwide. And no one is shy about pretending that in a country where President Erdoğan has been personally appointing and dismissing almost every street cleaner since 2018, only the opposition mayors are corrupt, while Erdoğan's are as clean as water for ablution before prayer.

In August, another earthquake occurred when mayors began to switch from the Republican People's Party to the Justice and Development Party on their own. The most painful for the opposition was the transition of the head of the large city of Aydın, Özlem Çerçioğlu. One of the few female mayors in the Mediterranean province, she won the election four times. She joined the ruling party along with three district mayors, and one can only guess how the authorities convinced the team, which had been in Atatürk's party for over 20 years and no longer had a chance of being elected in this city because the local population never gives a majority to Erdoğan's candidates, to take this step...

And recently, the authorities decided to take control of Atatürk's party itself. A court ruling called into question the results of the party congress in November 2023, when Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu lost his position as leader and Özgur Özel became the new head of the CHP. In mid-September, the court will deliver its final verdict and, most likely, Kiliçdaroğlu, who lost the presidential race to Erdoğan in May 2023, will regain leadership of the party.

This is evidenced by the next blow dealt by the authorities last week. The court decapitated the party's largest branch, the Istanbul organization, and appointed external administration in the person of Gürsel Tekin, currently an ordinary party member and former secretary general of the party (in Turkey, this is the second-highest position in a party after the leader), who is known for his closeness to Kiliçdaroğlu.

On Monday morning, Gürsel Tekin and four colleagues, who were appointed by the court as temporary leaders of the Istanbul organization, barely entered the premises of the party's city branch in the Sariyer district with the help of hundreds of special police officers. However, in the evening, the central leadership of the CHP decided to cancel the official legal address of the city branch in the Sarıyer district and moved it to the district branch of the party in the Bahçelievler district. As of today, Sarıyer is the Istanbul office of CHP leader Özgur Özel.

The party has already notified the Ministry of Justice and the Central Election Commission of this. The official reason is the disinsection of the premises due to an excessive number of insects. The party spokesman warned that if the Istanbul authorities try to enter the party's new office, the central leadership will immediately move it to another location. There are 39 district branches in Istanbul, and the party can designate any of the premises as its central city office at its discretion. The distance between them is sometimes more than 50 km, which is a two-hour drive in a congested metropolis. Thus, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Election Commission will receive daily reports about the relocation of the party's central Istanbul office due to the need to disinfect each premises where the authorities will try to bring in their people to destroy the largest center of Atatürk's party from within.