The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) general congress process got off to a bumpy start as members were involved in quarrels during local party council meetings in Turkey’s largest cities, reports said Wednesday.

The CHP has been holding meetings since September to elect local delegates ahead of the party’s 37th general congress.

Several members participating in the voting process, held in various neighborhoods in Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir, got into fights over the party’s lists.

Ankara’s Prof. Dr. Ahmet Taner Kışlalı neighborhood was one of the places where CHP members complained about a number of technical issues affecting the outcome of the vote.

Party member Can Karatoprak claimed they were prevented from having vote observers, even though the CHP administration said they were entitled to them. Furthermore, he claimed that the ballot boxes were obscurely placed so that they could not be seen, even though there were more suitable places.

In Istanbul’s Dikilitaş neighborhood, CHP members got into a brawl and the ballot boxes had to be brought to CHP’s Istanbul headquarters under police supervision.

CHP İzmir Deputy Chair Sedredil Coşkuner was hospitalized after getting caught in the middle of a fight between party members.

The main opposition will start electing district delegates next week, and internal rivals within the party, who are tired of Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his inner circle, are expected to continue to express their frustration.

The party has also faced allegations that some of its members slandered former presidential candidate Muharrem İnce for allegedly visiting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

President Erdoğan and İnce both rejected the claims. For his part, İnce argued that certain party members want to knock him out as a contender for party chairmanship and cut his influence. He mostly blamed Kılıçdaroğlu for his ineffective leadership and poor crisis management skills for the recent upsurge in intra-party incidents.