The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has referred Ilkay Çiçek, the mayor of the western town of Menderes in the province of Izmir, to its disciplinary board, seeking his expulsion from the party. The party’s secretary-general, Rıfat Turuntay Nalbantoğlu, said in a social media post that Çiçek was facing disciplinary action because “his conduct and attitude did not comply with the party’s principles.” Çiçek was detained on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged corruption at the municipality, but it was his WhatsApp correspondence with a girlfriend that made him even more notorious.
The WhatsApp correspondence shows Çiçek telling his girlfriend that he was “walking cash” after she asked why he kept sending her photos of banknotes. “I got paid for whatever I do,” he says in one message. Çiçek then goes on to say that he was receiving “bribes left and right” and would not be caught because it was all done through “those two idiots,” he told his girlfriend, referring to two alleged associates who controlled the flow of bribes to the municipality.
Other messages between Çiçek and his girlfriend include one in which he writes that he is “too h...” and would “f... even my driver and staff.” Çiçek initially claimed the messages were AI-generated when portions of the correspondence first surfaced a few months ago. He later changed his account and instead complained about the “leak” of his “private conversations.”
