Turkish opposition set for showdown over leadership ballot forced by court

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was set for a tug-of-war after backers of its ousted leader petitioned on Wednesday to hold fresh elections to replace his court-appointed replacement.
An Ankara court in May annulled the CHP’s 2023 leadership election, citing alleged vote-buying, and reinstated unpopular former party chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu as leader.
The decision sparked protests from the CHP, which has been rising in the polls at the expense of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the party’s headquarters stormed by the police in the wake of the decision.
Ozgur Ozel, a prominent critic of Erdogan who was ousted as leader by the ruling, has since called for an extraordinary party congress, arguing that the party cannot be governed by what he described as an imposed leadership.
More than 800 CHP delegates had by Wednesday submitted petitions calling for that congress to elect a party leader, a party source told AFP.
The petitions, delivered to CHP headquarters in Ankara, meet the threshold required under party bylaws to convene an extraordinary congress within 45 days.
But political observers say Kilicdaroglu, who had faced criticism for a string of electoral defeats, is all but certain to attempt to stall the congress and any challenge to his leadership.
The court ruling marks the latest affair embroiling the CHP, Turkiye’s oldest political party.
The opposition has accused the authorities of carrying out politically motivated stings to weaken the CHP, which defeated Erdogan’s ruling AKP in the 2024 local elections.
Kilicdaroglu, who led the party for over a decade, was voted out at the 2023 party congress, five months after his loss to Erdogan in a closely contested presidential election left the party in a period of internal turmoil.