Leadership contest engulfs opposition CHP

Ousted Turkish opposition leader Ozgur Ozel said Wednesday he would not leave the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) and called on party members to vote for a new leader.

Separately, CHP interim leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said the party should hold a conference where delegates would choose a new leader, saying there was “no alternative” to this course of action.

Why is there a leadership conflict within Turkey’s main opposition party?

Last week, a Turkish court overturned the results of the 2023 CHP primary elections that elected Ozel as party leader. The ruling reinstated his defeated rival Kilicdaroglu.

It is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the opposition CHP and its leaders, who its supporters say are part of a coordinated plot orchestrated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to obstruct the opposition. The government rejects these claims.

What Ozgur Ozel says about the future of the CHP

Attending a ceremony during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in the western city of Izmir, Ozel dismissed speculation he might form a new party.

“We have no intention of creating a rival party,” Ozel said, according to the A day newspaper. “There are those who say we should resign, but no one should leave the party or resign. We will solve this problem.”

Ozel urged that the party’s leadership be decided by a vote among its 2 million members.

“We hope that Kilicdaroglu will not attempt to lead a party for which he was not democratically elected,” Ozel said.

Ozel was named party leader in 2023. He rose to prominence in part when the CHP won a string of victories in local elections in 2024, putting pressure on Erdogan and his longtime government, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

His image was further boosted during widespread protests after Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a former CHP presidential candidate to challenge Erdogan, was arrested in March 2025 and subsequently charged with corruption and other crimes.

Following last week’s court ruling, Ozel’s supporters barricaded themselves inside the CHP headquarters in protest. The police forcibly evicted them on Sunday.

How Kemal Kilicdaroglu sees the CHP conflict

Kilicdaroglu, 77, is a CHP veteran who has been at or near the party’s zenith for years, but who failed to defeat Erdogan in previous elections – including his narrow defeat in the 2023 presidential runoff.

He said the dispute should be resolved through a party congress.

Once the legal conditions are met, a leadership vote “will take place, there is no alternative”, he told reporters.

He said this must take place on a legal basis and respect party rules.

Kilicdaroglu also dispelled rumors of expulsions from the party, saying such measures should follow established rules.

He criticized Özel’s supporters for occupying the CHP headquarters, saying closing the building to the public and lawmakers was an inappropriate response to the court’s ruling.

What the CHP’s unrest means for Erdogan

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, attended the Eid al-Adha ceremonies in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Leading Turkey since 2003 – first as prime minister, then as president once he redefined that role to wield most political influence in 2014 – Erdogan and his AKP party’s influence on the country’s politics has gradually eroded, culminating with his roughly 52% to 48% victory over Kilicdaroglu in 2023.

The AFP news agency spoke to a series of Turkish political analysts on Wednesday, all of whom agreed that early elections looked increasingly likely amid upheaval within the CHP.

“From Erdogan’s point of view, early elections could be advantageous if the CHP is forced to enter the process divided, legally constrained and internally exhausted,” Seren Selvin Korkmaz, co-founder of the Istanbul Political Research Institute, told AFP.

This scenario would also allow Erdogan to circumvent Turkish rules on term limits. These limit him to two consecutive mandates of a maximum duration of five years. Erdogan is already in his third term, but the rules only came into force from his second term. If early elections are called before the term limit is reached, the rule lapses and the 72-year-old could run again.

In the meantime, legal proceedings continued against several CHP figures.

In addition to the imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, more than a dozen other CHP mayors have been arrested and charged with various crimes.

Erdogan and his supporters call it the result of endemic rule of law problems in the opposition ranks, while his critics see it as an attempt to undermine and marginalize his rivals in the courts.

Edited by: Rob Turner

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