Necif F. Bahadir
For weeks, speculation swirled over when Turkey’s ruling party would turn its sights on the capital. That moment arrived when former Ankara mayor Melih Gökçek, a longtime ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, took to social media late at night. Posting a photo of a ticking time bomb, he declared: “Are you ready, Ankara? A billion-dollar scandal is about to explode…”
It was less a hint than an announcement. And it immediately raised suspicions: how could Gökçek know of a supposedly secret corruption probe in advance, unless the whole affair was politically orchestrated?
A Familiar Pattern
The case echoes what happened earlier this year in Bayrampaşa, a district of Istanbul. There, opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was warned by ruling party operatives: “Leave your party, join us. We’ll save you.” He refused, and soon afterward prosecutors moved in with corruption allegations.
The goal was clear: the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdoğan’s party, wanted control of the municipality after failing to win it at the ballot box. By pressuring council members to defect, AKP forced a tied council vote that went to a random draw. Against their expectations, the CHP’s candidate won. Opposition leaders hailed it as “divine justice.” But AKP cried fraud and demanded annulment, comparing CHP to Turkey’s one-party rule of the 1940s—a bitter irony, critics noted, since the AKP itself has come to resemble the authoritarian model it once condemned.
The Police Move In
Just hours after Gökçek’s tweet, Ankara police launched dawn raids, detaining 13 municipal officials. The charges: abuse of office and bid-rigging in a city concert contract. But these officials had already been removed by current mayor Mansur Yavaş, who had spotted irregularities months earlier.
That makes the operation look less like an anti-corruption effort and more like a political strike. The real target, everyone agrees, is Yavaş himself.
Who Is Mansur Yavaş?
Yavaş, a lawyer by training and a former nationalist politician, was elected mayor of Ankara in 2019 as a CHP candidate. Known for his low-key, technocratic style, he is widely seen as one of the most popular figures in opposition politics—often polling ahead of Erdoğan in hypothetical presidential matchups.
That popularity has made him a marked man. Opposition figures like Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu have already been sidelined: İmamoğlu faced repeated legal cases, was handed a political ban, and even served time in prison on speech charges. Observers believe Erdoğan wants to use the same playbook on Yavaş, removing his strongest challengers before the 2028 presidential race.
Engineering Through the Courts
The Turkish opposition and many independent analysts call these “judicial operations”—politically driven investigations that invoke corruption or terrorism charges to damage opponents. The fact that pro-government newspapers reported the raids alongside video clips of Yavaş performing a traditional folk dance with Ankara’s Seymen groups seemed designed to ridicule him and shape public opinion.
Yavaş himself responded bluntly: “We conducted our own review. Inspectors from the Interior Ministry also examined the case. They found no public loss. Now they’re trying to twist it with talk of bid-rigging. The biggest thief in Ankara’s history already explained the real reason in his tweet.” His reference was clear: to former mayor Gökçek, long accused of shady dealings but never prosecuted.
Warning Signs Within the Ruling Party
Interestingly, some voices inside Erdoğan’s camp are uneasy. Former AKP parliamentarian Orhan Miroğlu warned that such operations “no longer work” and only strengthen the opposition. Savcı Sayan, another AKP politician, complained: “Talking about CHP constantly only gives them space, unites them, and gives them hope. This mistake could sink the ship we’ve worked so hard to build.”
Veteran politician Hüseyin Kocabıyık, expelled from AKP for dissent, echoed the concern: “Every time you weaponize the judiciary, you weaken yourselves and empower the opposition. Every plot since March has blown up in your hands.”
But Erdoğan appears undeterred. Critics say his obsession with maintaining power has blinded him to reality.
The Bigger Picture
The stakes are high. Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdoğan has tightened his grip on Turkey, using emergency laws, mass arrests, and court cases to suppress dissent. Opposition mayors like İmamoğlu in Istanbul and Yavaş in Ankara represent rare alternative centers of power. Their electoral success in 2019 was a major blow to Erdoğan, showing that even in heavily centralized Turkey, voters in its two largest cities could defy him.
For Erdoğan, removing them from the political arena may be as important as winning future elections.
Outcome Uncertain
Will this “Operation Ankara” succeed where previous efforts faltered? Critics doubt it. Even among AKP’s base, questions are rising about the credibility of corruption allegations coming from a party itself tainted by massive scandals—most famously the 2013 graft probes, which implicated cabinet ministers but were shut down after prosecutors were purged.
A disinfectant-selling minister was caught red-handed during the COVID-19 pandemic. He kept his seat. Allegations of embezzlement against Melih Gökçek went nowhere. For many Turks, the double standard is glaring.
As one opposition lawmaker put it, this is not about cleaning up corruption—it is about political engineering, reshaping the opposition, and blocking Erdoğan’s strongest rivals.
For now, the police have detained mid-level officials. But everyone expects the net to move closer to Mansur Yavaş himself.
Erdoğan may be in the United States on a state visit. But, as critics quip, “his hand is in Ankara.”
