ISTANBUL: A Turkish university, Istanbul University, on Tuesday revoked the degree of Istanbul’s powerful mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on grounds it was falsely obtained.
The ruling could hurt Imamoglu’s plans to challenge Erdogan in the 2028 election, coming just days before he was to be formally named the main opposition CHP party’s candidate for the race.
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Under the Turkish constitution, any presidential candidate requires a higher education degree.
Imamoglu slammed the decision as “unlawful” and vowed to contest the move in court.
“We will fight this illegitimate decision in court,” said the 53-year old who has been targeted by an increasing number of what critics say are politically-motivated legal probes.
“We will build a system that will erase injustice from this country’s memory,” vowed Imamoglu, who was resoundingly re-elected as mayor of Turkey’s largest city last year.
He had earlier warned that the days were coming when “those who made this decision will be held accountable before history and the justice system”.
Erdogan has repeatedly rejected claims that he himself never graduated from university and was not constitutionally able to hold the office of president.
‘Imamoglu is our candidate’
In a statement on X, Istanbul University said the degree of 28 people, including Erdogan rival, would be “withdrawn and cancelled on the grounds of… obvious error”. It did not elaborate further.
Opposition leader and CHP head Ozgur Ozel slammed the decision as a “black mark” for the world of law and academia, but vowed it would not stop the party from fielding Imamoglu as a presidential candidate. He is to be formally named at a party primary on Sunday.
“The action taken is not legal, but political… we stand behind Ekrem Imamoglu… (who) is our presidential candidate”, said Ozel, expressing hope the courts would reverse the decision “as soon as possible”.
CHP lawmaker Murat Emir described the move as “a heavy blow to our democracy”.
The mayor’s office had previously published a copy of the business management diploma Imamoglu received from Istanbul University in 1995 after a journalist claimed he did not have one.
In recent years, Imamoglu has been named in multiple legal probes, with three new cases opened this year alone.
In 2022, he was handed two years and seven months in jail and banned from political activities for “insulting” election officials in Istanbul, in a sentence that he has appealed, the outcome of which is still pending.
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A vocal opponent of Erdogan — whose route to the presidency also saw him serving as Istanbul mayor — Imamoglu has lashed out at the legal cases as judicial “harassment”.
Istanbul University said it was sending documentation to the Istanbul prosecutor’s office as well as to the higher education council.