İmamoğlu Slams Erdoğan After Defected Mayors Join AKP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented AKP party badges to three mayors who had defected from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) during an AKP meeting in Istanbul. The mayors of Tuzla, Çekmeköy, and Şile were given the badges, a move that drew sharp condemnation from Istanbul's incumbent mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu.

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Erdoğan’s declared “new generation organization!” Buying the spirit with it, declaring victory with the body… Threatening with imprisonment, with captivity… Forcing the elected to kneel, to submit, to kiss hands! Then applauding this photo in closed halls!

İmamoğlu, who is currently facing legal challenges and house arrest, took to social media to denounce the event. He characterized Erdoğan's "new generation organization" as an attempt to "buy the spirit" and claim victory through coercion rather than popular vote. İmamoğlu accused the government of threatening elected officials with imprisonment and forcing them to submit.

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Our nation has never experienced such a period. Feelings of dignity, honor, and integrity have never been so humiliated. National will has never been so greatly harmed.

"This nation has never experienced such a period. Feelings of dignity, honor, and integrity have never been so humiliated. National will has never been so greatly harmed," İmamoğlu wrote, criticizing what he described as the government's use of state power and judicial means to achieve electoral victories when unable to win at the ballot box.

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To claim victory by force when you cannot win at the ballot box, using the power of the state through judicial means, knowingly, in order to protect your power. This is the end, the finish of a government, of a palace regime.

He further stated that such actions signal the end of the current administration and its "palace regime." İmamoğlu asserted that those who participated in this act, described as "wretches whose faces and eyes are bruised," would not be redeemed by tears of regret and would never be forgiven by the nation, as both power and positions belong to the people.

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Those wretches who became part of this act, whose faces and eyes are bruised, will not be saved even by tears of regret. This nation will never forgive them! Because words and positions belong to the nation! Who are you selling what is not yours to?