As Recep Tayyip Erdogan climbed the first step on the long path to political power in Türkiye, the man who would attempt to threaten his rule was wrapping up his studies at Istanbul University.
The year was 1994 and it saw Erdogan become the mayor of Istanbul, while his now bitter political rival Ekrem Imamoglu graduated from the faculty of business administration.
Both men continued their careers — Erdogan had a stint as prime minister before ascending to the presidency, holding Türkiye in his grip for more than 20 years and tightening his hold on its democracy.
And following a similar path to Erdogan, Imamoglu became the mayor of Istanbul, Türkiye's biggest city.
Imamoglu has long been a leading figure in his party — the Republican People's Party (CHP) — and is now considered to be Erdogan's most formidable rival.
But his 1994 university degree would become very important and, as of last week, very controversial.
To run for the presidency in Türkiye, a candidate must have completed tertiary study.
But on March 18, just days before the country’s opposition party was set to name Imamogalu as their presidential candidate and set up his official run against Erdogan, his degree was annulled.
Istanbul University, which is controlled by the government through a national education body, said there were irregularities in how Imamogalu had transferred into its management program.
The next morning, Erdogan's government sent "dozens of armed police officers" to Imamoglu's home, and detained him on a series of charges, including corruption, bribery and aiding a terrorist group.
The government denies opposition claims that Erdogan played a role in the legal moves and says the judiciary is independent.
But on the street, hundreds of thousands of Turks believe otherwise, as the arrest has sparked nationwide protests.
People have gathered across the country in the largest protests since anti-Erdogan sentiments last fomented into the 2013 demonstrations.
Back then, authorities violently shut down the sprawling anti-government protests.
That history has not deterred people from again taking to the streets to voice their frustrations at Erdogan’s latest attempt to end political opposition.
Since Imamoglu's arrest, the demonstrators have returned, but they have presented Erdogan with another opportunity to exercise his obvious power.
Nearly 1,900 people have been detained, local and foreign journalists have been arrested, including a BBC reporter who was then deported.
More than a week after the protests kicked off there is little sign of them abating, despite the increasing pressure from authorities.
The similarities in the stories of Erdogan and Imamoglu don't stop at their election to mayoral office and the president knows all too well that as a young leader rallying a crowd, time in jail can galvanise support for your cause.
Erdogan's 'mortal threat'
Imamoglu and Erdogan have built their political careers in similar fashions. Both have been mayors of Istanbul, and both have gone from that office to jail.
Erdogan became mayor of Istanbul in 1994, but five years later was sent to prison for inciting religious hatred after reading a nationalist poem at a political rally.
Back then, secularist courts saw the poem as a threat, Soner Çagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, said.
“[The poem] basically said something like: 'the minarets are our bayonets and the domes, our helmets',” Dr Çagaptay said.
The stint behind bars did not dent Erdogan's popularity. It soared. And four months after being sent to prison, he emerged as a national hero.
He rode that wave of support into a decade as prime minister and went on to become president in 2014.
For more than 20 years, Erdogan has survived and he has altered the system ahead of him to prolong the amount of time he can spend in it.
Erdogan was expected to be limited to two terms as president, but after a referendum in 2017, Türkiye's government changed from a parliamentary to a presidential system.
The powers of the president were expanded and came with warnings that the revised constitution removed checks and balances that would prevent authoritarian rule.
Having already served as president for two terms, some observers believed Erdogan would not be able to run again in 2023, unless under specific circumstances.
But his team argued time served before the 2017 constitutional reform did not count and the country’s Supreme Election Council agreed, paving the way for him to win a third term.
Another constitutional change will be needed for him to run again in 2028, but his party has signalled it's ready to do the politics to deliver that for him.
And a recent albeit striking shift on relations with Kurdish leaders suggests they could have found a way to rally enough support.
But getting Erdogan to the vote would still see him face one of his biggest political challenges in Imamoglu.
"He had a pretty good run [and] never had an effective opposition leader who could challenge him until Imamoglu entered the political scene," Dr Çagaptay told the ABC.
"Just as Erdogan is relatable and charismatic, so is Imamoglu."
They also share a common, conservative nationalist background and are both "pious Muslims", Dr Çagaptay said.
Erdogan has relied on a right-wing base for his political support, but Imamoglu has managed to build a broader base across ideological divides. And he's 18 years younger than Erdogan.
"Because of all these factors, Erdogan sees him as a mortal threat," Dr Çagaptay said.
"He decided to nip him in the bud."
It's not the first time Erdogan has tried to stifle Imamoglu.
Since Imamoglu first won the vote to become mayor of Istanbul in 2019, he has been in Erdogan's sights.
Technicalities were used to annul a mayoral election win for Imamoglu, but he won a re-run.
And in 2020, Imamoglu was sentenced to two years and seven months in jail for insulting election officials he had called "idiots" in a speech.
But last week, once Imamoglu had been detained and charged, a fresh wave of protests erupted, mostly by angry younger voters, Dr Çagaptay said.
With Imamoglu sidelined, and few independent institutions remaining in Türkiye, Erdogan can shape narratives in his favour, but he has been surprised by the scale of the protests.
That has made Erdogan cautious about moving too rapidly, and replacing Imamoglu with a caretaker from his own party — as he has done in the past.
Given Imamoglu’s popularity, Erdogan likely doesn't want him to be released.
"If Imamoglu is allowed to go free and run in elections and contest there's no way Erdogan is winning, which is why [Imamoglu] has sadly ended up in jail," Dr Çagaptay said.
But as Erdogan knows, while being locked up can prevent Imamoglu from running, it could ratchet up the number of people who would be willing to vote for him.
With Imamoglu detained, almost 15 million people voted for him in a CHP presidential primary vote, the party said on Monday.
The CHP said about 1.7 million of its members were joined by 13 million people who do not belong to the party to back Imamoglu as its official candidate for the next presidential election, which is due to be held in 2028.
On Thursday, the CHP named him as their candidate and in an New York Times essay written from jail, Imamoglu said:
"Amid mounting injustice and a troubled economy, public frustration in Türkiye has reached a boiling point.
"People are speaking out and rallying around me, a candidate who promises inclusion, justice and the hope of a better future.
"They will not be silenced. But the public also recognised my arrest as an attempt to push Turkey further down the path of autocracy."
'It will look more like Belarus'
While Imamoglu's future is uncertain, the anger of younger voters who have taken to the streets to protest is clear.
The voters of Türkiye’s Generation Z had been seen as disengaged and written off as apolitical, but the scale of the protests have shown otherwise.
And the future of Türkiye in part relies on the way things go following the arrest of Imamoglu, according to Dr Çagaptay.
If the demands of the protesters are not heard and if Imamoglu is not freed and allowed to run in elections, young people could leave in numbers, bringing another “brain drain” to the country.
"Maybe Türkiye is not where they see their future," Dr Çagaptay said.
In the country’s long history, it has happened before and quite recently.
In 2013, protests against then prime minister Erdogan and the subsequent police crackdowns led to many young people moving abroad.
"That resulted in brain drain from Türkiye — many young people including some extremely well-educated citizens left Türkiye thinking there was no future for them," Dr Çagaptay said.
"We could see another wave of educated young people leaving the country."
In his essay, Imamoglu wrote that his nation risked "passing a point of no return".
"This is more than the slow erosion of democracy. It is the deliberate dismantling of our republic’s institutional foundations. My detention marked a new phase in Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism and the use of arbitrary power."
Türkiye, Dr Çagaptay agreed, is at an inflection point.
"Erdogan is about to take the adjective competitive out of his competitive authoritarian system and it will become purely authoritarian," he said.
"It will look more like Belarus than any other country on the European continent — excluding Russia."
Today, the CHP are expected to launch the presidential campaign for Imamoglu with more demonstrations expected across the country.
Milena Buyum, Amnesty International's Senior Türkiye Campaigner, told the ABC most people had been protesting peacefully but some had thrown "burning objects" at police.
In response, authorities have beaten protesters with truncheons, used pepper spray and shot people with plastic bullets loaded with "irritant powder" that's like pepper spray, she said.
"We've been incredibly concerned about the use of excessive force," she said.
"There's a huge amount of tear gas being used, water cannons, on protesters."
She has called for an investigation into the use of excessive force by authorities against peaceful protesters.
"In Türkiye far too often what we see is these abuses go unpunished," she said.
