Özgür Özel, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which boasts of taking over municipalities from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in last month’s local elections, said he was ready for talks with AK Party head and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Özel said the time and date was unimportant for such a meeting and they would comply with Erdoğan’s schedule.
Speaking to a local broadcaster on Monday, Özel also ruled out the speculation that the party would call for an early general election.
CHP registered an unprecedented success in more than two decades against the AK Party in the March 31 elections, months after Erdoğan secured another term for five years in general elections. The president often criticizes the CHP for its secret alliance with a party affiliated with the terrorist group PKK. Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu never held an exclusive meeting with the president during his tenure while Erdoğan announced earlier that he was open to talks.
Özel said he would discuss a potential meeting with Erdoğan with the party’s former chairs. He reminded that he held a phone call on the occasion of Ramadan Bayram, also known as Eid al-Fitr, earlier this month, with Erdoğan and they were now planning a working meeting with Erdoğan. He said among topics he hoped to discuss with Erdoğan were debts of municipalities CHP won in the elections and projects by municipalities that needed the signature of Erdoğan, as well as foreign loans the municipalities secured. After a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, Erdoğan has said his door was always open to Özel, adding that they had many issues to discuss.
On a question about an early election call by the CHP encouraged by local wins, Özel said it would hurt the confidence of the voters. “I asked the electorate to show a yellow card to (the AK Party) and we won their votes. This was strictly for local elections and the voters cast their ballots for this reason. I cannot call them to support an early election now,” he said. Özel implied that he would not make the call unless the government addressed economic woes. “If the current situation lingers, an early election is near. We will ask for early elections if they do not heed the voice of the nation,” he stated.
Özel replaced Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu last November as the new CHP chairperson. The latter lost to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in last May's two-round presidential election. Kılıçdaroğlu's loss, despite the support from an opposition bloc, only contributed to his downfall and Özel emerged as a contender promising "change" in CHP, Türkiye's oldest party.
Experts tie the CHP's success not entirely to Özel but to a mix of factors, from an electorate disillusioned with high inflation to some lackluster candidates of the AK Party. Indeed, the CHP won in constituencies it barely succeeded in winning for decades, such as Afyonkarahisar in the west and other places where AK Party mayors fared relatively well in past elections.
The CHP's success fueled a debate over whether it may win the 2028 presidential elections after the lengthy tenure of President Erdoğan. But in any case, it will likely be another prominent figure of the CHP that will run against Erdoğan in the next election, not Özel – namely Ekrem Imamoğlu. The politician recently secured a second term as mayor of Istanbul, Türkiye's most populated city and economic capital. Imamoğlu is already claimed to be pulling the strings in the party and deciding which candidates to pick in the municipal vote. He raised his profile with his unprecedented victory in the 2019 election.
