Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), faces questions about his leadership and the challenge of preserving a bitter opposition alliance ahead of local voting in March 2024.

He was considered the only chance to defeat incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by his six-party alliance. A lively election campaign promising "a new spring" after two decades of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rule lifted the spirits of the opposition supporters. But it all came down to a crushing end on Sunday evening when Erdoğan proved he was a force to reckon with by winning 52.18% of the votes, according to the unofficial results of the presidential elections. Calls for the resignation of Kılıçdaroğlu, who is now also without his seat in Parliament, followed the immediate aftermath of the defeat, while some administrators of the party reportedly offered their resignation as well.

According to some party members, analysts and voters, he must immediately re-focus on maintaining control of Türkiye's big cities in the municipal elections. But after his loss to Erdoğan, many opposition members and supporters are frustrated and considering leadership changes.

"It was not a surprising result since the opposition did not change for 20 years facing the same government," Buğra Öztuğ, 24, who voted for Kılıçdaroğlu in Istanbul, told Reuters. "I feel sad and disappointed, but I am not hopeless."

The CHP held internal discussions this week in Ankara to pick up the pieces. The broader six-party opposition alliance convened after Sunday's election results came in though there was not a single statement by the bloc, while leaders of each party made brief remarks about the election loss.

Akif Hamzaçebi, a former CHP deputy parliamentary group chair, said his party and Kılıçdaroğlu were "seriously unsuccessful" because of poor strategy and a comprehensive re-evaluation is needed. If "the necessary actions are not taken, the future will be worse than today," he said on Twitter. Media reports say that all members of the Central Administration Board (MYK) of the CHP also presented their resignation en masse after the election loss. Still, Kılıçdaroğlu rejected them, reportedly telling them it was "not necessary" to quit at the moment. The mass resignation would mean the acknowledgment of the CHP's failure and would not help Kılıçdaroğlu overcome the criticism.

Kılıçdaroğlu, 74, had long pressed to be the man to take on the 69-year-old Erdoğan. The opposition alliance of parties of seemingly vastly different political views, chose him as a candidate in March, even though some members had warned at the time that he was not the strongest option based on opinion polls. His selection came after a dramatic weekend in which Meral Akşener, leader of the Good Party (IP), the Turkish opposition's second largest, briefly walked out in protest. Yet on the campaign trail, Kılıçdaroğlu won the key backing of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is accused of ties to the PKK terrorist group but was also considered a kingmaker with a potential vote of around 10%. In the end, he barely managed to force a runoff on May 28.

In a speech on Sunday evening, Kılıçdaroğlu claimed the election was unfair, but he gave no sign of resignation and said he "will continue to lead and struggle for democracy."

According to analysts, Kılıçdaroğlu will now seek to keep this unwieldy alliance united, including the HDP's support, to hold on to cities in March 2024. In the last municipal elections in 2019, CHP candidates backed by the alliance shocked AK Party by winning mayoralties in Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya and Adana.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu of the CHP, who Akşener had promoted as a better presidential candidate than Kılıçdaroğlu, said on Monday that the "struggle is starting again." "We will no longer expect different results by doing the same things. From now on, we will continue to fight to win all hearts," Imamoğlu said in a video address.

An internal debate within the CHP, the party of modern Türkiye's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, will likely stir ahead of a party congress scheduled for this summer.

Emre Erdoğan, a political science professor at Istanbul's Bilgi University, told Reuters that the opposition's election loss made it harder to form a "grand" alliance, but this remained necessary for success in the local elections in March 2024. "If the opposition cannot unite again, the victories of 2019 may be reversed and the opposition camp can lose Istanbul and even Ankara," he said.

Veterans of the CHP, who parted ways with the party amid internal strife, pointed out a need for an extraordinary election for the party. Mehmet Sevigen, a former state minister and one of the prominent names of the party who was expelled in 2021, says the runoff was "a tremendous defeat." Speaking to the Sabah newspaper, Sevigen said he has been opposing the presidential candidacy of Kılıçdaroğlu for the past two years. "You cannot put the sign of Grey Wolves next to the victory sign," Sevigen said, referring to the unlikely alliance Kılıçdaroğlu formed amid opposition parties. The victory sign is traditionally adopted by the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), while the Grey Wolves sign is associated with nationalist circles, in this case, the IP.

"The public saw that Kılıçdaroğlu was not a credible person. He lost credibility by cooperating with people like Ali Babacan and Ahmet Davutoğlu (leaders of two parties in the six-party alliance who were former members of the AK Party)."

Sevigen said they anticipated an extraordinary meeting with the election in the CHP and Kılıçdaroğlu should step down as soon as possible. "He may not be inclined to resign but the public reaction to his tenure may change it. It should be done before the March 2024 elections," he said. Sevigen said although Imamoğlu was viewed as a potential successor to Kılıçdaroğlu, there would likely be "more candidates."

Yılmaz Ateş, former deputy chair of the CHP, told Sabah that the party lost "all its basic values" during Kılıçdaroğlu's tenure and it was high time for him to step down. "They may seek an exit from the current crisis by relieving some executive committee members of their duties but it won't be a lasting solution," he said. Ateş tied Kılıçdaroğlu's defeat in the runoff to a shift in his policies, including trying to portray himself as an ally of nationalists and forcing out people advocating patriotic policies of the party and "turning a blind eye to national policies in critical issues like issues in the Aegean Sea, Cyprus, Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan," he said.

Ateş reiterated that the CHP lost in all the past 13 election campaigns and that Kılıçdaroğlu should resign as soon as possible.