Around 100 tractors join opposition protest in central Turkey

Around 100 tractors blocked roads in central Turkey on Saturday as they joined the latest anti-government protest called by the main opposition CHP.

The rally in the central town of Yozgat took place exactly a month after the arrest of Istanbul’s popular opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest political rival.

That detention sparked Turkey’s worst street protests in a decade and prompted a sharp crackdown by the authorities who detained nearly 2,000 people.

Although the initial mass demonstrations tailed off, the government has failed to stamp out the unrest, with ongoing protests by university and high school students, and CHP leader Ozgur Ozel calling weekly rallies across Turkey.

Wearing a flat-cap, Ozel drove a tractor into Yozgat on Saturday at the head of a long convoy where several thousand flag-waving protesters had rallied in this deeply conservative farming heartland that has long backed Erdogan’s AKP and its nationalist allies.

“Government, resign!” they chanted in footage posted online by several opposition news outlets.

“I warn the authorities who see the people of Yozgat as ants and are trying to crush them: we will not let you crush these hard-working farmers!” Ozel told the crowd.

Last month, around a dozen local farmers were fined for staging a tractor protest over Imamoglu’s arrest and the government’s roundup of young protesters which has sparked widespread anger.

“The government is putting pressure on students but the future of Turkey is the students, right?” one of the tractor drivers told the Anka news agency, without giving his name.

“We came here to support each other, we can’t afford anything because of hunger and thirst…. Our government should stop being partisan and deal with people’s hunger,” he said.

At the rally, organizers read out a letter from Imamoglu urging support for the opposition’s call for early elections.

“If the government were to call early elections today, the economy would get back on track,” he wrote in a direct appeal to those who voted for Erdogan’s AKP or its nationalist MHP ally.