The Republican People’s Party (CHP) council on Tuesday unanimously agreed to convene the ordinary assembly on Nov. 4-5, when party leadership will come to a tossup between current Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and a hopeful member.
Later in November, the party will host sessions to determine its bylaws as well, party officials said after a meeting at CHP headquarters.
Kılıçdaroğlu will have one challenger in Özgür Özel, a pharmacist turned lawmaker, who officially announced his candidacy earlier this month, claiming he was “ready to do anything” to boost support for CHP.
Since another crushing defeat in May’s presidential and legislative elections, Türkiye’s biggest opposition party has been facing public outcry and a deepening rift between Kılıçdaroğlu’s supporters and critics who have been chanting for change for months.
Kılıçdaroğlu, named incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s contender on behalf of a six-party alliance after much debate in the first place, has been endlessly criticized for his role in the opposition’s failure and repeatedly urged to step down.
A new leadership in CHP, which would replace Kılıçdaroğlu’s 13-year reign, could energize opposition masses less than six months until mayoral elections in March 2024. But the party still looks at low odds even in metropolitans like Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, where it currently governs.
After May, the six-party bloc dissolved when CHP’s biggest partner, the Good Party (IP), walked out over, on top of other things, ideological differences, citing a desire to “do it all by ourselves in all 81 provinces” of Türkiye.
If the IP is to compete with its own candidates, it could spell disaster for CHP even in historical strongholds.
Pundits also say that without joining forces, especially without the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a party linked to the PKK terrorist group, which enjoys some 10% support nationwide that also helped CHP clinch the megacities in 2019, both parties are looking at grim odds next March.
