Turkish police detained Erdal Besikcioglu, mayor of Etimesgut district in the capital Ankara, as well as 54 other officials and corporate executives, West Ankara chief prosecutor’s office said on July 30.

As part of a sweeping corruption investigation, early-morning raids were executed by the capital’s financial crimes unit across nine provinces.

West Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office said the operation targeted 56 residences, 15 commercial premises and 41 vehicles and included a search of Etimesgut municipal headquarters.

Among the 55 detained are senior municipal leadership officials, including three deputy mayors, department heads who oversee public works, finance and zoning and the board of Etimkent A.S., the municipality’s public-sector enterprise.

Prosecutors confirmed that 13 corporate executives from contractor firms spanning construction, medical supplies and waste management were also taken into custody.

The investigation centres on allegations of structured procurement fraud, tender rigging and illicit financial gains derived from municipal parking leases and property zoning clearances.

A mayor a day keeps the dissidence away

Besikcioglu is a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). On July 24, the CHP lost its standing as the country's main opposition party to New Party (YP), a fresh party launched by former CHP leader Ozgur Ozel. Ozel was stripped of his place at the helm of the CHP by court order. Most of the CHP’s MPs have deserted the party in order to join YP.

On July 29, Sinem Dedetas, mayor of Istanbul’s Uskudar district on the Anatolian side, was detained.

The detention of Besikcioglu suggests a re-escalation in the judicial operations targeted at opposition-held municipalities. The frequency of mayor detentions has escalated to one per day.

Two points on a chart could be a coincidence, but three suggest a trend. The detention of another mayor on July 31 would confirm the implied shift.

42 detained, based on mayor of Ankara’s calculations

On July 11, Mayor of Ankara Mansur Yavas said that the mayor of Cankaya district in the city had become the 39th CHP mayor detained in the waves of judicial operations. Some mayors taken into custody have been released, while one was reinstated.

Since Yavas gave the figure of 39, Izmit (July 20), Uskudar (July 29) and Etimesgut (July 30) have lost their mayors to detention.

Some stay in jail like pashas, some join AKP

Istanbul Blog writes: “Just yesterday, one of our mayors came to me and said, 'A former AKP MP called me. They said an operation will be launched against you within 15 days. But if you go to Ankara for talks and consider switching to the AKP, we can stop it,’’’ Ozel said on July 29.

Also on July 29, Izmit mayor Fatma Kaplan Hurriyet (@fatmakaplan) wrote in a tweet: “Rather than joining the AKP, I would stay in jail like a pasha.”

When you do something like a pasha, you are, according to the Turkish idiom, doing that something in a cool way.

A few dozen CHP mayors have joined the AKP.

New party, old Ozel

Ozel may have a new party, but he remains the old Ozel. In Turkey’s political theatre, he continues to play his role as the main opposition leader. A main opposition party is a vital component of any political system. It provides required legitimacy to the political authority.

According to Ozel, Turkey holds real elections in which a peaceful transition of power is possible. He asserts that his party has “already won” the next elections.

Thanks to his smart discourse, Ozel remains at liberty, unlike the thousands of jailed members of his old and new parties. He receives Turkish lira (TRY) 512,009 (€9,404) in monthly payments from the government in the form of a salary for an MP in addition to a pension payment as a former MP.

For a bankrupted pharmacy shop operator, Ozel’s performance of self-actualisation is beyond what he could ever have dreamt of.

Based on the story he has told, his political career began with a surprise call from the head of the local chamber of pharmacists in Manisa while he was playing a Fifa football game on his computer at his pharmacy shop. Sounds like his shop was extremely busy.

Thanks to his good fortune, he now earns the equivalent of more than 18 minimum wages for doing absolutely nothing apart from buzzing around, talking perfect nonsense, in addition to occasionally climbing up on a police water cannon truck before the cameras.

Why should his luck not hold out to the point that he can take power as well? It would certainly be a probability in the Old Turkey. It held real elections in which the government regularly changed hands.