ISTANBUL: Turkiye has begun investigating allegations that Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, already the subject of a clutch of other legal proceedings, falsely obtained his university degree, the official Anadolu news agency said Saturday.
Imamoglu, who Friday submitted his candidacy to stand for the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP) main opposition for the next presidential election, will be questioned Wednesday over “falsification of an official document,” Anadolu said.
The stakes are high for Imamoglu as constitutionally, any presidential candidate must have a higher education degree.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has faced similar claims from opponents — which he denies.
Following allegations by a journalist, the Istanbul municipality last September published a photocopy of a business management diploma which Imamoglu received from Istanbul University in 1995.
The opposition mayor, who was last year re-elected having in 2019 won control of Turkiye’s largest city from Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), is the subject of a further five investigations, two of which were opened last month.
Regularly targeted by Erdogan, likewise a former mayor of Istanbul, Imamoglu was sentenced in December 2022 to a jail term of two years and seven months and banned from political activities for “insulting” members of Turkiye’s High Electoral Committee, a sentence he has appealed.
A vocal opponent of the president, Imamoglu denounced what he termed judicial “harassment” last month on leaving an Istanbul court where he had been questioned as part of an investigation opened after criticism of the city’s public prosecutor.