The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is embattled with corruption investigations into its mayors, suspended the memberships of two of its mayors after expelling a deputy mayor caught taking bribes. One of the suspended mayors who was arrested earlier this month, insisted that the CHP was his “family” and it was just “a reflex by the administration to the developments.”
Türkiye’s oldest party saw a spate of its mayors detained or arrested since late last year as investigations into corruption in CHP-run municipalities expanded across the country from Istanbul. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has branded the process as “revelations on tentacles of an octopus (of corruption).” Earlier investigations had focused on Istanbul and a businessman who was awarded lucrative contracts in exchange for bribes, and later turned to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who is accused of enriching himself and a close circle in the municipality with tender rigging and bribes.
The party’s leader, Özgür Özel, told broadcaster Habertürk on Tuesday that they were “ashamed” of nominating the deputy mayor of Antalya’s Manavgat district earlier for the office. “That person who received bribes hidden in a box of baklava was a member of the municipal assembly for the CHP earlier. We are ashamed of nominating him to his current post. We expelled him from the party and we suspended membership of former and incumbent mayors of Manavgat as they oversaw (the deputy mayor’s) nomination process,” he said. Özel had earlier claimed that the deputy mayor was a victim of a conspiracy and he reiterated this claim on Tuesday, contradicting his earlier statement on the shame of having a deputy mayor caught receiving bribes.
Meanwhile, Manavgat Mayor Niyazi Nefi Kara, arrested in a separate corruption probe, said in a statement released through his lawyer that the CHP was “his family,” and his party acted “under extraordinary circumstances” when it decided to suspend his membership. “We will continue following in the path of the clean policies of the CHP,” Kara said.
