A former mayor from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) filed a lawsuit to cancel the party's intraparty election in 2023. The lawsuit claims that voting delegates were paid in cash and received other forms of bribes.
Allegations by Lütfü Savaş, who served as mayor of the southern province of Hatay and was expelled from his party last year, will likely be included in an ongoing investigation into the 2023 election won by Özgür Özel. Özel’s predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, has repeatedly urged him to respond to the allegations.
In his petition to the court for a lawsuit, Savaş said he talked to many delegates after the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the capital, Ankara, launched an investigation into vote-buying for the chairperson election in the CHP held on Nov. 4-5, 2023. The investigation originally began in the northwestern province of Bursa, where complaints from a CHP member were made last year before it was handed over to prosecutors in Ankara, where the party’s headquarters is located in the capital. Savaş said delegates affirmed that the incumbent administration of the CHP and officials in its local branches pressured voting delegates to vote in favor of Özel. “It is obvious in allegations on social media and news reports that some delegates were handed houses and cars, some were delivered suitcases full of U.S. dollars, while others were delivered smartphones and tablet computers in exchange for votes. Others were promised jobs in CHP-run municipalities and were employed in those municipalities later,” the petition says. It points out, in particular, the employment of voting delegates and their next of kin in Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB).
Savaş said an examination of documents related to the election would expose how the will of hundreds of delegates was “changed” through bribery. “The current chair won the election with 18 more votes than the other candidate in the two-candidate election. It is clear that the other candidate would have won if the will of delegates was not corrupted,” the petition said. It calls for the election to be canceled and the incumbent administration of the CHP to be suspended.
Kılıçdaroğlu, who has insisted since then he had been “backstabbed,” maintains his open-ended claims that the said election had been “shady.” So far, the former CHP chair has been summoned to testify in the case.
Özel has dismissed his predecessor’s comments, but the account of another CHP member who witnessed the election firsthand indicates the issue may not die soon.
Some delegates were paid sums ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, Erkan Çakır told the Turkish newspaper Sabah last week. It was CHP’s Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu who paid them to force at least 150 delegates to switch sides against Kılıçdaroğlu, Çakır alleged. He said the delegates said they would pay the money back but didn’t. “We managed the whole congress with the 'change crew,'” Çakır said, referring to a subgroup in CHP led by Özel and Imamoğlu who championed for “change” after Kılıçdaroğlu lost back-to-back presidential elections to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during his tenure. “That election win was Kılıçdaroğlu’s right,” Çakır said. “Özel is sitting on that chair thanks to Imamoğlu’s money.” He claimed the money was funded by some TL 600 million ($16.57 million) spent on celebrations of Republic Day on Oct. 29, organized by Imamoğlu’s office.
According to attorney Zafer Işeri, speaking to Sabah, the 2023 intraparty election could be annulled or repeated if authorities detect any irregularities or legal violations. “Acts such as making someone vote in exchange for money are considered criminal acts, and if there is a conviction, certain measures such as a political ban are possible,” Işeri said. Kılıçdaroğlu’s reinstatement in case the law annuls the election is not possible unless the party bylaws include such a clause and would require a new election, the attorney said.
