The dissidents challenging main opposition the Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after the party's failure in the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections said Tuesday that enough signatures have been collected from party delegates to hold an extraordinary leadership convention.
Bilecik deputy Yaşar Tüzün, a prominent figure of the dissident camp and a close figure to CHP's presidential candidate Muharrem Ince, said on his Twitter account that dissidents had collected 625 signatures, which is simple majority of all the delegates.
According to the CHP bylaw, notary certified signatures have to be collected and submitted to the headquarters within 15 days once the petition is submitted. If this is realized, the CHP is obliged to hold an extraordinary convention within 45 days.
Tüzün said that they will continue to collect signatures until Monday afternoon, the deadline for the petition.
Ince was declared as the party's presidential candidate for the June 24 elections. He received 30 percent of the votes in the presidential elections, falling behind the winner, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Yet, support for Ince surpassed the support for the party by 8 percentage points in the parliamentary elections.
Ince failed twice in his bid for party chairmanship in 2014 and 2017, against the incumbent Kılıçdaroğlu, who has led the party since 2011 but has failed to win in all general and local elections and referendums since then. Ince and his supporters say the repeated election failures of the CHP are a result of bad leadership in the party and that Kılıçdaroğlu must be replaced.
In the aftermath of the elections, Ince said that he won't be openly challenging Kılıçdaroğlu as his administration nominated him as a presidential candidate, but said he will run in a convention if party delegates decide to hold one.
