A Republican People's Party (CHP) official has exposed deepening cracks in Türkiye’s six-party opposition alliance with the fast-approaching elections.
As Türkiye inches ever closer to its next presidential and parliamentary elections likely scheduled for May 14, the opposition’s unknown candidate to rival incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remains a source of uncertainty for the Nation Alliance.
The alliance is an electoral coalition helmed by the CHP and Good Party (IP) who allied themselves with four smaller parties, the Felicity Party (SP), Future Party (GP), Democrat Party (DP) and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) to challenge Erdoğan and his People’s Alliance, which includes the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The Nation Alliance has recently been rife with controversy and internal debates as to who the presidential nominee will be and how they would act if elected, with countless names being thrown in the ring. Allies CHP and IP leaders in particular have been at loggerheads with their own preferences over the shared candidate.
Kılıçdaroğlu has often nominated himself while IP chair Meral Akşener has repeatedly thrown her support behind Istanbul and Ankara Mayors Ekrem Imamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş. There have been accusations hurled around despite the six leaders convening every now and then to discuss their common strategy and electoral program.
Displeased with Akşener’s initiative-taking, there is a growing hostility toward the Good Party leader within the CHP.
In a recent example revealing opposition infighting, the CHP’s Istanbul head Canan Kaftancıoğlu argued that politicians “love taking credit for others’ work” and said CHP chair Kılıçdaroğlu had “planned” for the election process “a decade ago.”
Noting that she “has to give credit where it’s due, Kaftancıoğlu said: “This has become a habit. The architect of the Istanbul elections, the one who first devised this process in not only Istanbul but all of Türkiye with incredible strategy and determination from day one and in fact from a decade ago is CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.”
She was referring to the 2019 mayoral elections that saw Nation Alliance candidate Imamoğlu claim victory in Türkiye’s top metropolis.
In another instance, Kaftancıoğlu had refused to shake Imamoğlu’s hand during a procession at CHP’s “Call to the Second Century” event a couple of months back where the party unveiled its electoral vision to counter AK Party’s “Century of Türkiye” push.
Some have even claimed the CHP official has gone as far as hurling intense insults about Imamoğlu, who had responded that he “believes she did not say those words as a woman.”
Imamoğlu, despite having Akşener’s endorsement and being a popular candidate among opposition supporters, faces a major hurdle in actually running for the top office in the form of a court sentence that seeks to ban him from politics and jail him for nearly three years for “openly insulting public officials” during the 2019 election period.
The CHP itself has been resolute about supporting Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential race but other leaders in the six-party alliance have also sought a seat in the spotlight, with DEVA Chair Ali Babacan even declaring he “could win the election and perform the job flawlessly.”
While some in the bloc still express openness to welcoming an outsider candidate, the alliance is set to name its candidate in February, according to a CHP official last week.
The 2023 elections will likely be the first time with two rounds, as it will be the first since the country switched to a presidential system of governance. However, for Erdoğan, the elections will be “more important and historical” due to what he called the “beginning of Türkiye’s new vision, the Century of Türkiye,” a motto Erdoğan often repeats about new action plans in a wide array of fields, from defense to economy, to improve Türkiye’s standing in the international community.
