“I will stand tall, I will never bow,” wrote Ekrem Imamoglu in a message to Turks ahead of his March 23 transfer to an infamous prison but also, importantly, ahead of a primary vote set to make him the main opposition’s official presidential candidate in defiance of the prospect that a conviction will legally bar his candidacy.

In a bid to turn the vote into something of a referendum on whether citizens see Imamoglu as the last hope in a last-ditch battle to save Turkey’s democracy from the autocratic designs of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Imamoglu’s party, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), opened the vote to non-party members.

In further remarks posted on social media, Imamoglu criticised his “politically motivated” arrest as a "black stain on our democracy". His comments came as he was formally arrested and charged with "establishing and managing a criminal organisation, taking bribes, extortion, unlawfully recording personal data and rigging a tender".

Imamoglu, a politician this publication has long argued is seen as a “real threat” by Erdogan, whom he has been unable to neutralise, urged people across the country to join protests and to participate in the Sunday primary vote, in which he is the sole candidate.

The detention of Imamoglu—also on March 23 stripped of his office of mayor of Istanbul—triggered mass protests across Turkey that have so far lasted five days, despite the authorities casting the country into an undeclared state of emergency that includes a ban on demonstrations. They are the biggest protests experienced by the country in a decade.

Turkish TV actor Feyyaz Yiğit was among those going to primary election ballot box stations to vote in Imamoglu as the CHP presidential candidate (Credit: halk.tv.com.tr).

Responding to the scenes, Erdogan accused the CHP of trying to "disturb the peace and polarise our people". But many protesters have told reporters they have come to the street not because they are CHP supporters, but because they want to defend democracy. A woman who brought her 11-year-old son to a protest told the BBC she wanted him there because she was worried about his future. "It's getting harder to live in Turkey day by day, we can't control our lives, we can't choose who we want and there is no real justice here," she said.

By the weekend, in efforts at curbing the protests, the authorities were limiting travel in and out of Istanbul and shutting down bridges in the city leading to the municipal headquarters (Donald Trump aide Elon Musk appeared to be doing his bit too, with X blocking the accounts of opposition figures) and Erdogan was describing protests, which have been met with rubber bullets and the liberal use of tear gas, as “street terrorism”.

However, Imamoglu, in documents seen by Reuters, that show he answered at least 70 questions during his police interrogation, doubled down in his attacks on authorities for launching the prosecution, telling counter-terrorism officers: "I see today during my interrogation that I and my colleagues are faced with unimaginable accusations and slanders. These slanders will bounce back after hitting the walls in the heart of our nation."

Erdogan, on the other hand, claimed it was other “walls” that should disturb people, saying: "We will certainly not allow the CHP and its cronies to disrupt public order and disturb the peace of our people through provocations. We will not tolerate operations to be conducted or surgeries to be done on Turkey, or the building of new walls of discord between 85 million people through social engineering."

Imamoglu’s chief spokesperson, Murat Ongun, who was one of the initial more than 100 people picked up by police during the Imamoglu-centered operation, was also on March 23 remanded in custody, after which he posted on X: “I was arrested on slander that was not based on a single piece of evidence!”

In the primary vote, the CHP—which has more than 1.5mn members and set up 5,600 ballot boxes for voting across all of Turkey's 81 provinces—said it had extended voting times to meet demand from vast crowds queuing to cast a vote, particularly in the party’s Istanbul stronghold of Kadikoy.

After casting his vote, the CHP’s Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavas, told reporters: “Honestly, we are embarrassed in the name of our legal system [by the arrest of Imamoglu].”