TURKISH authorities detained a former mayor and dozens of municipality officials in the western city of Izmir today over alleged corruption, extending a crackdown targeting the main opposition party.

Police detained 120 officials of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) including former Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer and the party’s provincial leader Senol Aslanoglu, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. 

The Izmir Public Prosecutor’s Office issued arrest warrants against 157 officials in total as part of an investigation into alleged rigging of local authority tenders and fraud, the agency added.

Officials from CHP-controlled municipalities in Istanbul and elsewhere have faced waves of arrests this year, including of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was detained in March on allegations of corruption. His arrest triggered Turkey’s largest street protests in more than a decade.

Mr Imamoglu was regarded as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the next election, due in 2028.

The latest arrest took place the day after Turkish police detained a cartoonist over a caricature depicting the Prophet Mohammed, the publication of which sparked an angry protest outside the Istanbul office of his satirical magazine, officials and media reports said.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation into the magazine had been launched, citing possible charges of “publicly insulting religious values.”