The arrests, on charges of alleged corruption, came after a similar operation in opposition-run Istanbul on March 19 that saw the arrest of its popular mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, the main political rival of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city that the opposition has run for years, a former mayor and numerous “senior officials” were among those detained, Murat Bakan, the vice-president of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) wrote on X.

In total, some 157 arrest warrants were issued in the operation, local media reported.

“We are faced with a process similar to that in Istanbul,” Bakan wrote, adding that Tunc Soyer, a former mayor, and Senol Aslanoglu, the party’s regional president, were among those detained.

“These dawn arrests were not a legal obligation, but a clear political choice,” Bakan wrote, saying that many of those detained had already been under investigation.

“If they had been called to testify, they would have done so,” he said.