By all outward appearances, CHP Chairman Özgür Özel has been leading the charge against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. Özel has issued fiery statements, camped out in the municipal building, and called for mass mobilization across Turkey. He has declared İmamoğlu to be the CHP’s sole presidential candidate, insisting there is “no alternative.
And yet, beneath the grand declarations and choreographed resistance lies a far more ambiguous—and, arguably, cynical—reality. Has Özgür Özel already begun to politically abandon İmamoğlu—perhaps under pressure from President Erdoğan’s increasingly personal intimidation tactics?
Following İmamoğlu’s arrest, Erdoğan recently hinted that certain individuals “won’t be able to look their own family in the eye” once secret information is revealed—a comment widely interpreted as a threat involving compromising materials. The timing is no coincidence, nor is the sudden shift in tone from Özgür Özel.
Speaking in a makeshift office today inside the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) building, where he has reportedly been staying for a week, Özel told Sözcü columnist Güney Öztürk:
“…There is no alternative to Ekrem İmamoğlu. He is our presidential candidate. We filed a lawsuit against the cancellation of his diploma in order to make him a candidate. I believe we’ll get a result very soon because it was annulled in a completely unlawful way… İmamoğlu can sit in prison and read his book — we’ll win that election in his name… We will fight for İmamoğlu’s candidacy until the last legal day to nominate a candidate. There is no other name on our agenda. But if it becomes officially impossible for İmamoğlu to run, someone else will be nominated. Who that person is doesn’t matter.”
Özel’s words may project loyalty, but his messaging is riddled with contradictions. In one breath, he says İmamoğlu is irreplaceable. In the next, he shrugs off the possibility of a substitute: “If İmamoğlu’s official candidacy becomes impossible, someone else will be nominated. It doesn’t matter who.” For a party that claims to be rallying behind a single figure as the face of democratic resistance, the phrase “it doesn’t matter who” is politically and morally devastating.
If it doesn’t matter who leads the opposition, then what exactly are the people in Saraçhane marching for? What is the signature campaign for? What does Özel think about hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in the streets to defend?
This is not steadfastness—it is strategy. Özgür Özel is playing a dual game: publicly defending İmamoğlu to appease the party base while quietly preparing for his exit to maintain institutional stability and pave the way for dynastic autocracy in Turkey. It is an act of political containment dressed up as resistance.
This dual messaging—defiant on the surface, pliable underneath—raises the question of whether Özel’s positioning is truly based on principle or motivated by fear. If Erdoğan is indeed using the threat of character assassination or fabricated scandals to force political concessions, then Özel’s retreat might not just be strategic—it might be coerced.
Supporters of İmamoğlu are not wrong to feel betrayed. The symbolic gestures—sleeping on couches, declaring Saraçhane the “heart of resistance,” launching signature drives—ring hollow when paired with the suggestion that the party can simply move on to another candidate. If Özel truly believed İmamoğlu was irreplaceable, he would be willing to stake his own leadership on defending that candidacy, regardless of the outcome of the diploma case or the courts’ rulings.
Worse, this posture reveals a deeper failure of imagination in the CHP. The party appears more focused on managing crises than confronting the authoritarian logic that creates them. It is afraid to commit fully to a confrontation with the regime, even when that confrontation is forced upon it.
Instead of framing İmamoğlu’s prosecution as an existential threat to Turkish democracy—as it is—Özel is treating it as a technical and procedural hiccup. He gestures toward mass resistance but talks like a man preparing to compromise.
Many supporters may continue to fill the streets, sign the petitions, and chant İmamoğlu’s name. But unless Özel matches their resolve with unwavering political commitment—unless he is willing to say, without hedging, that no other candidate will replace İmamoğlu—the resistance he claims to lead will ultimately be revealed as hollow.
In the end, it is not enough to speak on behalf of the people’s will. A leader must be willing to follow it—especially when it becomes inconvenient.
And in this moment, with the fate of the opposition and the credibility of Turkish democracy on the line, it appears that Özgür Özel may have already moved on.
By: News About Turkey (NAT)
