President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday expressed worries about “the state CHP is in” as the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is embattled with a deepening divide.
Erdoğan addressed a large crowd of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) supporters in Ankara at an event organized by party’s branch in the capital. After listing achievements of governments led by the party which will mark its 25th anniversary in August, Erdoğan complained that the opposition failed the test to serve the public, despite its key gains in the 2024 municipal elections. “They have nothing to offer. You see what they are occupied with,” Erdoğan said, referring to feud between supporters of ousted chair Özgür Özel and reinstated leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. “They don’t have a day spent without fight. This is more than self-harm. They also harm Turkish politics. We solved many problems in the country but we failed to solve the opposition problem which now became chronic,” Erdoğan told fellow members of AK Party.
“We couldn’t teach them to adapt a national stand on topics like foreign policy, defense and fight against terrorism. What we have now is an opposition deficit,” the president added.
The president, who indulged in severe reprimand of the opposition in the past on a wide variety of issues, said it was not right Türkiye’s second biggest party to be associated with infighting. “We wish the opposition would compete with us to serve the nation. We are still searching for a worthy opposition,” Erdoğan said.
At the same event, Erdoğan welcomed Levent Koç, mayor of Ankara’s Haymana district, who formally joined AK Party after resignation from CHP hours earlier.
Since the 2024 municipal elections, 16 mayors from CHP joined AK Party. These include two metropolitan city mayors: Özlem Çerçioğlu of Aydın and Burcu Köksal of Afyonkarahisar. Media reports say more mayors may join AK Party soon, including mayors of three other districts of Ankara. CHP claims they were blackmailed to join the party while mayors deny the reports and often reason their departure from CHP with disputes with the administration led by Özgür Özel. Koç is the first mayor to leave CHP for AK Party after Özel was ousted from office with a court verdict, in the wake of allegations of vote-buying in a 2023 intra-party election where he defeated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Kılıçdaroğlu was reinstated to office last month.
