Türkiye’s main opposition party dumped its embattled leader in favor of an untested former pharmacist in the early hours of Sunday, five months following a devastating election defeat to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling political alliance.

The staunchly secular Republican People's Party (CHP) voted for Özgür Özel at the party’s hours-long 38th congress in Ankara, ending a 13-year term for incumbent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after squandering what many viewed as the opposition’s best chance to end Erdoğan’s two-decade rule.

An absolute majority couldn’t be achieved in the first round of voting, but the results in the second round saw Özel take 812 of 1,366 delegate votes against Kılıçdaroğlu’s 536 to become the CHP’s 8th leader.

Speaking from the stage in front of thousands of flag-waving CHP members, Özel, his voice hoarse with excitement, promised the cheering crowd a brighter political future and "to make people smile."

"This is the greatest honor of my life," he said, adding he thanked Kılıçdaroğlu for his work at the party. "We are embarking on the road for local election victory."

"We believe in turning hopelessness into hope. We are hopeful," Özel said, surrounded by applauding party members and standing alongside Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu.

Since his election defeat, Kılıçdaroğlu has come under fire for refusing to step down as the leader of the CHP, established by modern Türkiye's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Under Kılıçdaroğlu's 13-year term, the CHP failed to surpass a historic ceiling of 25% nationwide support.

"I carried our Great Leader Atatürk's legacy with honor until today," Kılıçdaroğlu said on social messaging platform X after the results and congratulated Özel. "And today, with the decision our congress delegates made, I say goodbye to the post of chairperson."

May’s presidential and parliamentary elections came amid the struggle of a cost-of-living crisis. Kılıçdaroğlu managed to pull together a multi-faceted alliance that included both right-wing nationalists and left-wing socialists.

But the six-party bloc nearly fractured months before the election and then underperformed in the polls despite pre-election surveys predicting a strong showing.

Erdoğan secured his third presidential term in a run-off vote.

Kılıçdaroğlu then riled many within his own party by refusing to concede defeat and quit.

Özel said in his winning speech Sunday that he would mobilize the party immediately to "compensate for the great sadness" of May’s election defeat.

Kılıçdaroğlu, 74, had led the party since 2010, and ever since, the CHP failed to win a single national election, although it scored significant victories in local elections in 2019, taking a handful of major cities.

A call for change at the top of the CHP was led by Imamoğlu, one of the party’s most prominent figures and an outspoken critic of the way the party ran May's election campaign.

Others also complained that the secularist CHP had become undemocratic, with too much power in the leader’s hands.

Özel had spent a large part of his career working as a private pharmacist in the socially liberal Aegean resort city of Izmir.

He eventually became head of Türkiye's pharmacy association and was elected to parliament in 2011.

The bespectacled 49-year-old German speaker won the final ballot by an 812-536 margin after promoting himself as the candidate for "change."

But the vote was far more focused on personalities than any particular policies.

Kılıçdaroğlu compared attempts to unseat him to a "stab in the back."

Özel countered that he wanted to "write a new story and reshape Turkish politics."

Focus on March polls

Özel will now lead the party into local elections on March 31, 2024, where the party hopes to keep hold of the key municipalities it won in 2019, including the capital Ankara, Türkiye's biggest city Istanbul and other major cities.

"We will not stop. We will work. We will work shoulder to shoulder. We will regain all the municipalities we (currently) have. We will add new ones and together we will win a great victory," Özel said.

The CHP congress arrived with much of the political attention turning to the March municipal elections that Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) have entered into with a full head of steam.

Erdoğan has long prided himself on never losing a national election and keeping his alliance in control of both parliament and Türkiye's main cities.

But his air of invincibility was punctured in landmark 2019 elections that saw the opposition win both Istanbul and Ankara for the first time during Erdoğan's rule.

Erdoğan has been focused on seizing back both cities since his re-election to a final five-year term.

Analysts believe Erdoğan's chances are strongest in Istanbul, the city where the Turkish leader grew up and where he launched his political career as mayor.

Current Istanbul mayor Imamoğlu became a darling of the opposition after winning a hugely controversial re-run election against Erdoğan's ally in 2019.

But Imamoğlu has since lost some of his luster and is currently facing the threat of being barred from politics by Turkish courts.

Imamoğlu has been convicted of insulting a public official and could be forced to resign should the ruling be upheld.

He decided against challenging Kılıçdaroğlu and instead backed Özel's candidacy.

The CHP is still looking at grim odds, however, as its former allies, namely the nationalist Good Party (IP) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), at risk of closure over alleged links to the PKK terrorist group, are planning to compete with their own mayoral candidates next year.

Özel previously pointed out a "de-identification" and "the squandering of rights within a negotiation-based alliance" where CHP was "forced to lay low not to anger its partners."

He also said it would be "a blatant loss to refuse partnerships in constituencies where an alliance is necessary," arguing his CHP would "welcome" a team-up if other parties make an offer.