This photo shows Cumhuriyet Square in the western province of İzmir's Çeşme district. (Getty Images)
Turkish authorities on Oct. 7 continued a series of operations targeting municipalities run by the opposition, detaining dozens of people, including deputy mayors, in raids on Istanbul’s Esenyurt and the western province of İzmir’s Çeşme municipalities.
In Esenyurt, authorities issued detention warrants for 19 suspects as part of a corruption investigation into allegations that municipal tenders were rigged and contractors were solicited for bribes, according to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Seventeen of the suspects have been detained, including an Esenyurt deputy mayor, according to the authorities.
The Esenyurt Municipality has been run by a government-appointed trustee since 2024, after then-Mayor Ahmet Özer of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was arrested on charges of membership in the PKK/KCK terrorist organization.
Özer was released in 2025 in the case but was not reinstated as mayor, with the trustee administration remaining in place.
In a separate operation targeting İzmir’s Çeşme Municipality, authorities issued detention warrants for 12 people on charges including establishing, managing or belonging to a criminal organization, bribery, extortion and forgery of official documents.
The investigation was launched following a tip-off that municipal documents belonging to the Directorate of Zoning and Urban Planning had allegedly been burned and destroyed by a municipal cleaning worker, according to sources from the prosecutor’s office.
The Interior Ministry has also removed from office four mayors and Ataşehir Deputy Mayor Murat Güneş after they were arrested as part of ongoing investigations.
The four include Istanbul’s Eyüpsultan Mayor Mithat Bülent Özmen, Mersin Mayor Vahap Seçer and the mayors of the city’s Yenişehir and Mezitli districts, Abdullah Özyiğit and Ahmet Serkan Tuncer, respectively.
Municipal council members are expected to elect new mayors to replace those removed from office.
The arrests come amid a broader series of investigations targeting mayors elected from opposition parties, which have intensified over the past year.
Several opposition mayors and senior municipal officials, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, have been jailed pending trial as part of the investigations.
