Nuri Başkapan, who worked for the municipality for the last five years, said he was fired on May 23 after he donated 50 Turkish liras to Republican People's Party Istanbul mayoral candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu's election campaign, T24 said.
İmamoğlu scored a narrow victory at the Istanbul polls against Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate on March 31, however, the country’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) annulled the Istanbul vote and scheduled a rerun on June 23 following an appeal by the AKP, which cited fraud and electoral irregularities.
Earlier this month, Başkapan posted some tweets in which he asked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about the YSK's detailed reasoning for the annulment of the Istanbul vote and he criticised pro-government media. He also shared the receipt of his donation for İmamoğlu's campaign on Twitter.
"My job contract was cancelled in my absence when I was in Rize (north-western Turkey) for the funeral of a relative. I called the executives when I was back from Rize and I was told that my social media posts in recent weeks caused a disturbance".
Başkapan said he was told by the municipality that the dismissal order came from Erdoğan's chief of staff Hasan Doğan, who gave a reference about Başkapan for recruitment.
The Turkish man said he would take legal actions against the municipality over his dismissal.
The Istanbul municipality has not made a statement about Başkapan’s allegations.