President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) took control of İstanbul’s Ataşehir Municipality on Saturday after the arrest of its elected mayor and his replacement, with city council members from opposition parties boycotting the vote to select a new acting mayor, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Serdar Orhan, the joint candidate of the AKP and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was elected in the fourth round with 18 votes. He was the only candidate. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the main opposition New Party council groups did not participate.
Ataşehir’s elected mayor, Onursal Adıgüzel, won the district with 56.38 percent of the vote in the March 2024 local elections. He was arrested in April and suspended from office. CHP council member Murat Güneş replaced him after defeating Orhan by 22 votes to 14 in an April 30 council election.
Güneş was himself jailed on October 5 in a bribery investigation and suspended the following day, prompting Saturday’s vote. Prosecutors allege that municipal officials demanded payments from construction companies in exchange for zoning approvals and occupancy permits.
The city council’s political balance had shifted before the election. Six members elected on the CHP ticket joined the AKP on September 29, while others left the CHP to sit as independents.
New Party supporters protested the arrests and alleged political pressure during the election. Police intervened, leading to a scuffle, while journalists were denied entry to the municipal building, Euronews reported.
New Party leader Özgür Özel had alleged that defecting council members were pressured, blackmailed or offered money and that Güneş was detained after refusing demands to resign.
In another İstanbul council election on Saturday, the opposition retained control of Eyüpsultan. Cafer Parlak, the joint CHP-New Party candidate, won the acting mayor’s post with 19 votes in the fourth round following the arrest and suspension of Mayor Mithat Bülent Özmen on October 6.
The AKP said it would challenge the result, arguing that a ballot wrongly invalidated in the third round should have given its candidate victory.
Ataşehir follows earlier AKP takeovers in other İstanbul districts won by the CHP in 2024. In Gaziosmanpaşa, the council elected an AKP acting mayor in June 2025 after Mayor Hakan Bahçetepe was jailed and suspended. The AKP also regained Üsküdar in September following Mayor Sinem Dedetaş’s arrest and a court decision blocking her initial replacement from serving.
The takeover came as courts have ordered at least 34 people jailed pending trial in separate municipal investigations in Bayraklı and Çeşme in İzmir and Esenyurt in İstanbul since October 9. Those arrested include former Bayraklı mayor Serdar Sandal and deputy mayors in Çeşme and Esenyurt.
Esenyurt was won by the CHP in 2024 but is now run by government-appointed trustee Can Aksoy. The arrested deputy mayor, Yusuf Ulutaş, was appointed under the trustee administration.
The investigations have increasingly altered control of municipalities won by the CHP in the 2024 elections, when it finished ahead of the AKP nationwide. The İlke TV news website reported on October 7 that 40 mayors had been arrested since those elections. The cumulative figure includes officials who were subsequently released.
The opposition has also been divided since a court removed Özel from the CHP leadership in May and reinstated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Özel and 90 other lawmakers subsequently left to establish the New Party in July.
Opposition parties say the municipal investigations aim to weaken Erdoğan’s rivals and reverse their electoral gains. The government denies political interference and claims prosecutors and courts act independently.
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