The Republican People’s Party (CHP) is fast losing the count of conventions, extraordinary or ordinary, it held. The conventions, regarded as a way to dodge legal proceedings targeting the party’s alleged wrongdoings, also help the incumbent administration to reinvigorate support.
The CHP recently dodged a trial into alleged vote-buying during a 2023 election that brought current Chair Özgür Özel to power in Türkiye’s oldest party, but Özel still faces a challenge, courtesy of his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Though he worked hard to distance and expel pro-Kılıçdaroğlu names from the main opposition party, Özel will be challenged by the remaining dissidents in the upcoming convention scheduled for Nov. 28-30, a report by the Sabah newspaper says.
On the first day of the convention, the CHP will adopt a new charter, and on the second day, elections will be held for the party’s chairpersonship. On the last day, delegates will pick members of the party’s main assembly and high disciplinary board. Özel, as he did in past extraordinary intraparty elections, will likely run unopposed for party chair, although members will vie for seats in the party’s main assembly.
The report by the Sabah newspaper says the convention will be a clash of two factions in the party founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye. Supporters of former Chair Kılıçdaroğlu, who represented “old-school” CHP, though he brought major changes to the party’s traditional policies, will be pitted against proponents of Özel. Kılıçdaroğlu himself ruled out any more political ambitions, but he was willing to take over if last month’s trial ruled for the nullification of Özel’s chairpersonship. Özel, however, has been cautious against a possible Kılıçdaroğlu rule post-trial and has recently launched a purge of names deemed close to the former leader.
The CHP has been divided into two, although it maintained a facade of unity, before and after Özel’s election in November 2023. Former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who was arrested last March on charges of corruption, has been influential in shaping the party’s administration, after he was instrumental in toppling Kılıçdaroğlu by lobbying for Özel in 2023. The Sabah report says the party’s assembly was allocated to names picked by Imamoğlu, who was later nominated as the future presidential candidate of the CHP. Özel, however, plans a reshuffle for almost half of the assembly in the upcoming convention. This may be a move to curb Imamoğlu’s influence within the party, although Özel himself appears as the most staunch supporter of the mayor, who was originally brought to the spotlight by Kılıçdaroğlu, only to be betrayed by Imamoğlu in the intraparty election.
Many members who entered the assembly with Imamoğlu’s backing could be sidelined, signaling a potential shift in the party’s internal balance of power toward Özel and away from Imamoğlu’s faction, according to the Sabah report.
Since taking office after the contentious 38th Ordinary Congress, Özel and his senior team have carried out what has been described as a sweeping purge of Kılıçdaroğlu loyalists. More than 400 party members have been referred to the disciplinary board in the first 10 months of Özel’s leadership. CHP members who raised or supported the allegations tied to the vote-buying case were swiftly expelled. In recent months, over 80 figures, including media-savvy Barış Yarkadaş, Gürsel Tekin and former lawmaker Berhan Şimşek, have faced disciplinary proceedings, and many were expelled from the party.
Following the convention schedule launched in July amid widespread criticism, more than 300 district chairs were replaced, along with 20 provincial chairs who were dismissed under the general headquarters’ directives. As a result, one-third of district chairs and one-fourth of provincial chairs across the country have changed. By overhauling the delegate structure and completing the ordinary congress, the party’s central leadership is now preparing to remove the remaining Kılıçdaroğlu supporters from all levels of the CHP’s organizational structure.
