Although briefly, a funeral united the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Thursday.

Since he was ousted from office with a court verdict last month, former Chair Özgür Özel saw his successor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, for the first time at the funeral ceremony at Parliament in Ankara.

The two men, who have savagely reprimanded each other for days, shook hands at the ceremony for former lawmaker Orhan Sür. Yet, this was pretty much the entirety of the encounter. Kılıçdaroğlu left the ceremony minutes later while turning down questions by journalists who inquired how it felt to return to Parliament. Özel, now serving as parliamentary group chair of the party, returned to his office at Parliament following the funeral.

The encounter, however, is not expected to go beyond a simple gesture of kindness as Kılıçdaroğlu was expected to chair a disciplinary board of the party later on Thursday, to consider expulsions of members close to Özel. Özel insists he is still the rightful holder of the office and repeatedly urged Kılıçdaroğlu to hold a new intraparty election, confident of winning again, three years after he defeated the longstanding leader in a November election. An Ankara court has ruled that Özel’s victory was dubious amid allegations of vote-buying and reinstated him to the office. Özel appealed to the verdict, and the case is now before a higher court.

Thursday’s disciplinary board meeting was expected to focus on appeals by CHP members expelled at the earlier meetings. The Sabah newspaper reported on Thursday that the Kılıçdaroğlu administration plans to launch disciplinary actions for two lawmakers at next week’s central executive board meeting at the party. Along with Cemal Enginyurt and Adnan Beker, the two men who staunchly support Özel’s claim to office, the heads of CHP’s provincial branches in Düzce, Sinop and Kars will be referred to the disciplinary board, the newspaper said.

Accepting the job as chairperson of the CHP made Kılıçdaroğlu a target of the pro-Özel camp in the party, who have branded him as a traitor. Although Özel avoided the word so far, he has accused Kılıçdaroğlu of serving the government in what he called a "political” court verdict that removed him from office.

Mounting hatred in the party apparently forced Kılıçdaroğlu to skip an event in Istanbul on Thursday. The party has announced that he would travel to the city for the first time since the reinstatement on Thursday morning, in a motorcade planned as a show of force for the Kılıçdaroğlu supporters. However, the CHP chair scrapped the plans, reasoning that it could be "wrong under current circumstances. He said in a social media post on Thursday that he originally planned to attend an Ashura event in Istanbul but decided to skip it as it would be "better not to attend due to the current atmosphere.”

"The best stance, sometimes, is not joining the crowd. It is also best not to join others to politicize faith,” he said.

Kılıçdaroğlu, who highlighted his Alevi identity during a presidential campaign in 2023, said he has never succumbed to using any faith as a political propaganda at any point in his life. "We won’t allow Ashura, the month of Muharram, one of the most exceptional times of the Islamic faith, to be exploited for political polemics, tensions and propaganda,” he said in the post.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s critics claimed earlier that he planned his entry to Istanbul deliberately in the morning rush hour to give the perception that his supporters had a long convoy, by mingling with rush hour traffic on Istanbul’s Asian side.