Struggling to maintain a facade of unity for months, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) finally made it clear that it is now fully divided, as two rallies over the weekend indicated.
At the party’s headquarters in Ankara, former Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was reinstated to office after a court ruling earlier in May, appeared before his supporters for a major rally on the occasion of Qurban Bayram, or Eid al-Adha, on Saturday. A few kilometers away at Güvenpark in the heart of the capital, Özgür Özel, whose chairmanship was annulled by the same court ruling, convened an apparently larger crowd, around the same time.
Kılıçdaroğlu was relentless in his criticism of the administration of Özel, who is now relegated to the post of CHP’s parliamentary group chair, while Özel implied Kılıçdaroğlu betrayed the party, something that was more vocal among his supporters who chanted “Traitor Kemal” as Özel spoke.
Türkiye’s oldest party, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also the founder of the Republic of Türkiye, succumbed to infighting after Kılıçdaroğlu lost a presidential bid against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2023. Within months, Özel and his team, including Istanbul’s former Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, mobilized against him, and in November 2023, Özel won an intraparty election against Kılıçdaroğlu. The congress where the election was held, however, was stained with allegations of corruption. The allegations by former delegates of the party made it into a formal lawsuit, and an appeals court concluded the case recently by ordering Özel out of office and reinstating Kılıçdaroğlu. Last week, Özel and his supporters resisted an eviction notice issued by Kılıçdaroğlu’s lawyers for a few hours before leaving the headquarters following chaotic scenes of attack on police by the Özel supporters.
The CHP advocates for an early election ahead of the 2028 general vote, but the annulment of the Özel administration has dragged the party into uncertainty. A chronic election loser in the past two decades, the party may reinvent itself under Kılıçdaroğlu, but the fracture seems permanent, with the Kılıçdaroğlu supporters appearing steadfast in their determination to take back the party. Rumors are swirling that Özel may establish a new party, but it is unclear whether it will be a success story or doomed to join the long list of minor parties that barely secure enough votes for seats in Parliament.
Apart from brief remarks, Kılıçdaroğlu, for days, has been quiet about the turmoil but signaled he was back to his political ambitions in full during Saturday’s event at the party’s headquarters. Although the Kılıçdaroğlu supporters have arrived in the building during the eviction process, only to be confronted by pro-Özel groups, it was the first time that Kılıçdaroğlu commanded such a crowd since his unceremonious farewell to the top CHP post three years ago.
Speaking on a platform against the backdrop of a poster reading “A Clean Beginning,” Kılıçdaroğlu renewed his call for a “purge” of corruption in the CHP, something he has been saying for months now in his criticism of the Özel administration.
“We are members of the CHP. We do not harbor hatred against anyone. We confront people for moral reasons, not for personal grudge. The cleansing is key. This is not a purge but a rebirth for us,” he said.
The CHP saw a number of mayors, including Imamoğlu, detained or arrested on charges of corruption in the past two years. Several investigations were linked to each other as prosecutors pointed out criminal networks thriving on bribery and tender-rigging. The party was also rocked by sex scandals involving mayors. Kılıçdaroğlu was the first to call on the party to unburden itself from corruption, suggesting parting ways with those involved in corruption and sex scandals. During the legal proceedings on the 2023 intra-party election, he has also called on the Özel administration to acquit itself of the accusations.
“If a party’s internal democracy is damaged, the country’s democracy is also damaged. If a party administration had problems with moral legitimacy, they cannot claim working for democracy in Türkiye. We entrusted (CHP headquarters) to a new administration, but they led it to the courtrooms. I want to know who made this party entrusted to us (by Atatürk) amid talk of the negotiations at nightclubs,” he said on Saturday, referring to allegations of negotiations with CHP delegates to vote for Özel in return for bribes.
“I will hold those responsible to account. Then, I will bring before you the ballots,” he added, in response to Özel’s earlier call to hold a new intra-party election after he was ousted. “We will head to a safe harbor for the party together,” he said.
Kılıçdaroğlu said they would not allow irregularities in the party, “nor those clinging to their seats.” He later went on to issue a lengthy apology. “Let me make amends with you right now. I owe an apology to this noble nation and these devoted people (of the CHP). I apologize to you for failing to recognize in time the agents of FETÖ who secretly infiltrated into the sacred journey I initiated,” he said. The Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) was accused of planting its infiltrators into the CHP in the past, including an adviser to Kılıçdaroğlu while he was the chair of the main opposition. Recently resurfaced testimony of a former FETÖ member also indicates that Özel had support of the terrorist group as well. Enis Uludemir, a member of a commerce chamber in Manisa, a western province that is the constituency of Özel as well, confessed in 2016 that the terrorist group sought to fuel the political rise of Özel. Uludemir said Özel was still a pharmacist in Manisa’s Salihli district when FETÖ began discussing supporting him in 2007.
“Since then, they have offered him financial support. He told investigators that FETÖ played a role in a secret public relations campaign for Özel, some four years before he was elected as a lawmaker for the party. Uncovered correspondence between FETÖ members Erkam Tufan Aytav and Salih Yaylacı, two influential names of the terrorist group, has also revealed FETÖ’s links to Özel. In one correspondence, Aytav and Yaylacı discussed giving notes for a campaign to Özel to accuse the government of negligence in a mining accident.
Uludemir has also said that FETÖ determined politicians it can employ among the opposition, and Özel was picked. He noted that when Özel was nominated for mayor of Manisa in 2010, FETÖ worked hard for his election. “(FETÖ) members went door to door for a campaign against (the ruling) AK Party back then, claiming AK Party executives illegally seized the land belonging to a state entity. But eventually, the MHP won the mayoral seat. This time, they campaigned to send Özel to Parliament. They helped him enrich his family. His daughter, out of the blue, was awarded by schools run by FETÖ,” Uludemir said 10 years ago.
Kılıçdaroğlu also apologized for having “misguided people” enlisted by the party, including “those who, behind closed doors, sought support from foreign powers.”
“I apologize for not cutting off the siphons of those who stole the hard-earned contributions you made to this party, sacrificing from your honest livelihoods into fodder for corrupt tables. I apologize for failing to expose sooner those who turned the honorable delegates of the CHP into bargaining chips at nightclub tables, and those who dragged Atatürk’s party to the courthouse doors, trampling our reputation underfoot. I apologize to you, to our organization, and before the judgment of history for not being able to remove those corrupt mayors from this party and weed them out one by one. I failed to see those who exploited my good intentions and my love for this country to stab me in the back. Please forgive me and absolve me of any wrongdoing,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
“For two years, whenever this administration found itself in trouble, what did it hide behind? They invoked the 'ancestral home' of the party, didn't they?” he said. "Ancestral home" was a slogan, a motto often invoked by CHP members, including Özel, when Kılıçdaroğlu attempted to evacuate the headquarters. In a well-publicized, stagy video released on the day of eviction, Özel is heard saying, “This is why they destroyed the ancestral home,” as he tears up an eviction notice in the company of his supporters.
“Is turning a blind eye to bribery in Uşak part of the teachings of that ancestral home? Is there room in that ancestral home for bribe money carried in grocery bags?” Kılıçdaroğlu said, referring to the western municipality whose mayor was caught in a hotel with his mistress in a corruption raid.
“First the CHP will be cleansed, and then Türkiye will be cleansed. We will not only clean up the past; we will also build the future. We will bring together all the honorable sons and daughters of this country. Do not be afraid. We will protect our innocent mayors, but we will not turn a blind eye to those who have been tainted by corruption,” Kılıçdaroğlu also said on Saturday.
Özel, meanwhile, challenged the legitimacy of Kılıçdaroğlu in his speech. “We have the nation here,” he told the crowd supporting him, including members of several far-left parties who opted to support CHP in the past, instead of running on their own. “On the other side is pursuit of legitimacy with the support of a thin crowd,” he said, referring to Kılıçdaroğlu’s event. Özel claimed that “the order” in Türkiye sought to force its own politicians on the nation.
He also challenged Kılıçdaroğlu to hold a new election. “I am ready for a race as long as you set a date. Let the 2 million members of the CHP decide who will be the chair to lead this party to the congress,” he said. “If I fail to secure above 85% of the vote in any preliminary election, I will not run for the chairpersonship,” he pledged.
