Turkish opposition leaders say the government has found a new way to silence dissent: pressuring its mayors and local officials to defect to the ruling party.

Turkey’s main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is currently battling a string of what observers say are politically-motivated lawsuits and arrests targeting its mayors and leadership.

The crackdown began after the CHP won a major victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP in the March 2024 local elections.

But alongside the lawsuits, there has been a growing number of defections to AKP, with nearly 60 opposition-led municipalities switching allegiance to the ruling party over the past 18 months.

The highest-profile defection was in August when Ozlem Cercioglu, CHP mayor of Aydin near the southwestern

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