Ümit Erkol, chairman of the Ankara Provincial Organization of the Republican People's Party (CHP), was detained along with eight other individuals as part of an investigation by the Izmir prosecutor's office into suspected irregularities in a contract between the city municipality and a construction partner company, Izbeton, according to T24 and Birgün.
According to the Izmir prosecutor, cited by these media outlets, the investigation concerns "allegations of misappropriation of funds, serious fraud, forgery of official documents, and dereliction of supervisory duties."
Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of Ankara from the CHP, denounced the arrest, emphasizing in a message on X that Erkol is "a well-known figure, with a clear address and a specific public role," adding that "there is no risk of him fleeing, no possibility of him tampering with evidence."
"When an arrest warrant is issued under these circumstances, then we cannot speak of justice," he insisted.
The Turkish opposition is under pressure following the arrest and pretrial detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025, who has been on trial since March 9 for corruption, along with 413 co-defendants.
İmamoğlu, whom the CHP has nominated as its candidate in the presidential elections scheduled for May 2028, was considered the favorite and the only one capable of defeating President Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in power since 2003 and was re-elected in 2023.
Four CHP mayors, including the mayor of Bursa (northwestern Turkey), the country's fourth-largest city which the opposition won in 2024, have been arrested since the start of the trial.