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As a Turkish court bans Istanbul’s mayor from politics, has Erdoğan miscalculated?
Last week a court sentenced Istanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, to almost three years in prison and barred him from politics for allegedly insulting the judges in the Supreme Election Council (YSK) for their decision of canceling the mayoral election results in 2019.
- Kemal Kirişci
- Brookings
The decision comes six months ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey, and is widely regarded as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s move to block Imamoğlu from running against him as the rival candidate.
It comes at a time when the opposition — composed of six political parties, referred to as the “Nation’s Alliance” or “Table of Six” — has been unable to agree on a…