On Monday, the Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will have its administration’s legitimacy challenged by a court in Ankara. As the fate of current chair Özgür Özel hangs in the balance, his predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu enjoys the spotlight, even though he barely appears in public as he is used to. Over the past week, his name was trending on social media along with a barrage of media reports revealing cracks within the party.
Based on his remarks and criticism he faced from Özel’s supporters, Kılıçdaroğlu will apparently seek to take back the chairmanship of Türkiye’s oldest party if the court rules Özel and his alleged accomplices bought votes of delegates during a November 2023 intraparty election that brought Özel to power.
The CHP long boasted intraparty “democracy” and maintained a face of unity despite deep divisions within in the past, but the court battle may be the final straw.
Based on Monday’s verdict, the party can be appointed a trustee by the court, and Özel may lose his post if the court rules his chairpersonship should be nullified. Kılıçdaroğlu was quoted by pro-CHP journalists saying that he would not consent to the appointment of a trustee and may take over the CHP. If the court rules for “absolute nullification” of the 2023 election of Özel, Kılıçdaroğlu can be reinstated anyway to the post he lost under the existing laws. After his remarks emerged, he came under fire and was accused of stirring up tensions within the party by CHP supporters on social media. However, several CHP lawmakers came to his aid on Thursday, sharing social media posts one after another in support of the veteran politician. Lawmakers claimed Kılıçdaroğlu faced “systemic, heinous attacks.”
The Sabah newspaper reported on Friday that Kılıçdaroğlu even prepared a list of names he would expel from the party if he returns to his former post. The newspaper reported that Kılıçdaroğlu was planning to target particularly those whose names came up in corruption investigations. Former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu is the most prominent name in the CHP allegedly involved in corruption. Nominated as a future presidential candidate of the party by Özel, Imamoğlu is also among the suspects in the trial where several prominent names of the party are accused of manipulating delegates to vote for Özel in the 2023 vote. Imamoğlu has openly sided with Özel prior to the intraparty election.
Imamoğlu, who is currently held in Silivri prison, where he was visited by Kılıçdaroğlu in the past weeks, hit back at his former political mentor over his remarks regarding waiting for the court’s verdict about the 2023 election. “I was disappointed,” he told pro-CHP journalist Ismail Saymaz as quoted on Friday. Imamoğlu also said he was “betrayed” by Kılıçdaroğlu when the latter said he did not approve of mass street protests and ensuing riots launched by CHP supporters after the mayor’s arrest. His remarks indicate how big the fallout between Imamoğlu and Kılıçdaroğlu, who propelled the former’s rise to fame from mayor of a small district in Istanbul to presidential candidate of the CHP. Tanju Özcan, the media-savvy mayor of Bolu province for the CHP, may also face expulsion from the party if Kılıçdaroğlu returns. Özcan is a fierce opponent of Kılıçdaroğlu and recently called for the latter’s expulsion from CHP.
Özel has been careful about his remarks about Kılıçdaroğlu so as not to harm the public image the CHP meticulously crafted as an indivisible political entity, but the party’s mouthpieces in the media consistently portray him as a traitor to the party’s cause. Some even go as far as accusing him of being a puppet for the government, conveniently ignoring that it was Özel who reached out to the government for “normalizing” ties with the ruling party last year, after years of bitterness under Kılıçdaroğlu.
