Protests in Turkey
“Now it is enough”: millions of votes for Erdoğan opponents
Updated on March 24, 2025 – 10:47 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
The Turkish opposition chose Ekrem Imamoğlu to the presidential candidate – even though he is in custody. Many non-party members also participate in the vote.
The Turkish opposition party Chp has elected Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu to be the presidential candidate. Party leader Özgür Özel said to participants of a demonstration in Istanbul in the evening that 1.6 million of the 1.7 million CHP members for the 53-year-old voted as a candidate in a future presidential election.
According to Özel, millions of people also symbolically gave their voice on so -called solidarity choice boxes for İmamoğlu, which were placed in addition to the regular urns across the country. After counting a little more than half of the solidarity urns, you can get more than 13 million symbolic voices for İmamoğlu, said Özel. Turkey has 85.6 million inhabitants.
İmamoğlu is considered a promising challenger of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was arrested on Wednesday in connection with corruption and terrorist investigations and now transferred to custody for the former. İmamoğlu denies all allegations and accuses the government of wanting to investigate as a political rival cold stations. The Ministry of the Interior recognized the mayor’s office because of the pre -trial detention on Sunday. It is still unclear whether a government -related trustee is being used for the politically significant metropolis of Istanbul.
In the metropolis of Istanbul Istanbul protested hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday evening against the dismissal of İmamoğlus. CHP boss Özgür Özel spoke of one million participants. There are no information about the size of the demonstrations of local authorities.
“I greet the millions that have raised their voice on Sarachane Platz this evening and in the places all over my country,” it said in a statement published on Imamoglus X-account. “You said Erdogan:” Now it’s enough! “
