Turkish police detained 27 people in early-morning raids on Saturday as part of a corruption investigation targeting the opposition-run Çankaya district of Ankara, according to media reports.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for 36 people on allegations including forming or belonging to a criminal organization, bribery and bid rigging.
Çankaya Mayor Hüseyin Can Güner, a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was among those named in the investigation. It was not immediately clear whether he was among those detained.
The operation is the latest in a series of investigations targeting CHP-run municipalities since the party defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the March 2024 local elections.
The raids also come as the CHP faces a leadership crisis following a court ruling that annulled its 2023 congress, removed Özgür Özel and the party’s executive board and reinstated former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on an interim basis. The CHP has appealed the ruling.
Özel, who was visiting the southern city of Adana on Saturday, called on party members to gather outside Çankaya City Hall in solidarity with the municipality.
Hundreds of CHP officials and employees have been detained or jailed in corruption investigations over the past year, including İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival and the CHP’s presidential candidate.
İmamoğlu has been in pretrial detention since March 2025 and is standing trial with hundreds of co-defendants on charges including leading a criminal organization, bribery and bid rigging.
He denies wrongdoing and says the case is politically motivated.
The mounting legal pressure on the CHP followed its strong showing in the 2024 local elections, when it won the national vote for the first time in decades and retained control of İstanbul and Ankara.
At least 31 CHP mayors were in jail as of late June, according to a count compiled by the business news outlet bne IntelliNews, although no official consolidated figure is available.
After İmamoğlu’s detention, Özel helped mobilize Turkey’s largest opposition protests in more than a decade.
In an interview Friday with journalist Ünsal Ünlü, Özel said forming a new party was a “worst-case scenario” if legal efforts to overturn the leadership ruling failed.
Critics say the investigations and court cases are part of a government effort to weaken the CHP before the next national election. Erdoğan’s government denies interfering in the judiciary and claims the courts operate independently.