In democratic theory, local elections are among the most direct expressions of popular sovereignty. In Turkey, they have also been one of the few remaining avenues through which the opposition has been able to secure tangible political power against the country’s dominant president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. But a recent political crisis in the western province of Aydın has underscored a new phase in Erdoğan’s consolidation strategy — one that replaces competition at the ballot box with coercion, intimidation, and selective prosecution.
The focal point is Özlem Çerçioğlu, the long-serving mayor of Aydın Metropolitan Municipality and one of the most prominent female politicians in Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). She served as Aydın’s representative in the Turkish Grand National Assembly during the 22nd and 23rd legislative terms, before resigning to run for local office. In the 2009 Turkish local elections, she was elected mayor of Aydın, becoming the city’s first female mayor. Following Aydın’s transition to metropolitan status, she won the 2014 local elections as the province’s first metropolitan mayor and was re-elected in subsequent terms, governing the city for 16 years and transforming it into one of the CHP’s strongest regional strongholds. On August 13, multiple Turkish media outlets reported that she was set to resign from the CHP and join President Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on August 14, with Erdoğan himself scheduled to pin the party badge at a high-profile ceremony marking the AKP’s anniversary.
The reports triggered immediate political reverberations. CHP MP Süleyman Bülbül publicly confirmed that Çerçioğlu’s defection was imminent and claimed that three other district mayors — from Sultanhisar, Söke, and Yenipazar — would also join the AKP. CHP Deputy Chair Gökan Zeybek traveled urgently to Aydın, meeting with provincial leaders and attempting to reach Çerçioğlu, who had gone silent. Other senior CHP figures, including Group Deputy Chair Gökhan Günaydın, alleged that the decision was not voluntary but the result of direct political blackmail.
According to Günaydın, the pressure came in the form of a stark ultimatum: defect to the AKP or face imminent arrest, protracted detention, and aggressive legal action against her family’s business interests. The pretext was the so-called “Aziz İhsan Aktaş criminal organization” investigation — a sprawling corruption probe in which Aktaş, a businessman and confessed witness, has implicated multiple municipalities in alleged tender-rigging schemes. While Aktaş’s companies reportedly secured hundreds of contracts from AKP-led municipalities, investigative and prosecutorial focus has fallen disproportionately on opposition-run administrations, including Istanbul and now Aydın.
Documents cited by investigative news outlets indicate that a retired bureaucrat’s tip in May 2025 linked Aktaş’s firms to Aydın Metropolitan contracts dating back to 2015–2019. The tip also named one of Çerçioğlu’s former advisers, Erkan Karaarslan, alleging ties to another figure arrested in the Aktaş probe. While Karaarslan has denied wrongdoing and claimed his company has worked with municipalities across the political spectrum, the allegations provided a ready-made legal instrument for political leverage.
The pattern fits a well-established Erdoğan playbook. Over the past decade, the ruling party has repeatedly used the judiciary and security apparatus to unseat elected mayors it could not defeat at the polls, often by detaining them on corruption or terrorism charges and appointing government trustees in their place. In predominantly Kurdish provinces, this tactic has been routine. What is new in the Aydın case is the shift from removal to absorption — using the threat of legal annihilation not only to dislodge an opponent but to convert them into a symbolic acquisition.
Timing and optics matter. Bringing in Çerçioğlu on the AKP’s anniversary, in a province where Erdoğan personally has lost political ground, sends a dual message: to the AKP’s base, a show of strength; to opposition mayors nationwide, a warning that resistance can carry personal and familial ruin. Erdoğan appeared to allude to the move at a youth event on August 13, calling out “How many people from Aydın are here? Let me see Aydın,” in a moment that CHP leader Özgür Özel interpreted as a veiled reference to the impending defection.
Internally, the episode has revealed deep vulnerabilities in the CHP’s crisis management. In remarks outside Silivri Prison after visiting Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Özel accused Çerçioğlu of succumbing to an unjust ultimatum and criticized the AKP for leveraging the Aktaş case to coerce political opponents. He also alleged that Çerçioğlu had been maneuvering for weeks to create pretexts for departure, including encouraging local party figures to provoke disciplinary action: “For days now,” Özel said, “they have been telling all our mayors in Aydın: ‘Come, let’s go together.’ To the Efeler district mayor, they said: ‘Get yourself expelled from the party so I have a pretext.’ I refused to expel that dishonorable man from the party precisely to deny them that excuse. And now — here it is, plain as day.”
Özel cast the decision as a failure of moral courage: “While so many brave men are sitting in prison resisting this injustice, she could not show the same bravery.” He then pivoted to Erdoğan directly: “You have faced her as an opponent three times and could not beat the CHP candidate. On March 31, you were kicked out of Aydın. And now you think you can take it back with word games and threats?”
The fallout in Aydın has already spread. Several local CHP youth leaders resigned from their posts — some also leaving the party — citing internal factionalism and dissatisfaction with party leadership. Local media reported that municipal staff and village heads were pressured to resign their CHP memberships, allegedly under threat of losing municipal services or jobs. Journalists circulated purported WhatsApp messages from municipal personnel relaying instructions to send screenshots of resignation confirmations “on the mayor’s order.”
For Erdoğan, such defections are low-cost, high-yield political maneuvers. As commentators in Turkish political media have noted, the leverage often comes not from lavish inducements but from dossiers — real or fabricated — that can be deployed by a compliant judiciary. By selectively activating investigations that have lain dormant for years, the government can transform potential legal exposure into a political bargaining chip.
The broader implications are troubling for Turkey’s political system. When elected officials face credible threats that their liberty and property will be stripped unless they align with the ruling party, the principle of free electoral choice is hollowed out. This dynamic shifts politics from a contest over policies and programs to a marketplace of survival, where the price of autonomy is punitive prosecution. It also erodes public faith in the judiciary, which comes to be seen not as an arbiter of law but as an extension of partisan strategy.
By: News About Turkey (NAT)
