Old footage that surfaced this week may spoil the main opposition leader’s ambitions to draw conservative voters.
In the video, Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is seen next to Veli Ağbaba, a prominent CHP lawmaker, by the grave of Kamer Genç, a former CHP lawmaker who passed away in 2016. The video, reportedly taken five years ago, shows two men holding glasses of the alcoholic drink rakı. Genç’s lawyer Ergün Özer was quoted by the media that it was a display of disrespect for Genç and denied that it was the will of Genç to have people drink around his grave. Media outlets reported that Genç’s family is also preparing to file a lawsuit against the CHP leader over the video. Özel was not the leader of the main opposition party when the video was shot, and so far, has been quiet about the video.
Though Genç did not disclose his faith openly, his gravestone is a traditional Muslim one, calling visitors to recite verses from the Quran. Consuming alcoholic drinks is strictly forbidden in Islam, whose followers also view grave visits as a solemn occasion where drinking or cheering is looked down. upon. The video shows Ağbaba pouring rakı onto the grave while Özel is seen smiling, apparently inebriated.
In a bid to make amends with the pious population, which long shunned the CHP in elections, the party has sought to portray itself as respectful to religion, as its main rival, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). CHP's Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who was arrested in March on corruption charges, was famously captured on camera as he recited verses from the Quran in a funeral, a rarity for a top official in the party, especially for a future presidential candidate, as the party later announced. The party also included headscarf-wearing members in its ranks in recent years, another rarity for the party, which once endorsed secular elite behind an anti-Muslim witch hunt before and after the notorious 1997 coup.
Although Özel’s video raised criticism on social media, this is not the last instance where the party members drank their way through similar solemn occasions. Last January, CHP’s Istanbul Chair Özgür Çelik and a lawmaker were caught on camera in a cheerful mood as they were drinking in the eastern province of Kars, where they had traveled to attend a commemoration ceremony for soldiers who died in World War I. In 2017, the CHP members were captured on camera again as they were dancing drunk during an event at a cemetery for martyrs in western Türkiye.
