Türkiye’s Republican People's Party (CHP) is preparing to hold intraparty elections that will either oust or replace long-criticized Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu some five months before the mayoral elections in March 2024.
Some 1,370 delegates from 81 provinces will convene in the capital Ankara on Nov. 4-5 for the 57th CHP congress to elect a new chair, an executive council and a high disciplinary board.
Additionally, by the end of November, the CHP will convene again to ratify a new charter and program, which the members are working to "modernize" by following the codes of European leftist parties and other parties in Türkiye. The changes are said to include the selection of lawmaker candidates with a pre-election, limiting the terms of lawmakers and increasing the number of party council seats.
In minor congresses held nationwide since August, the CHP has so far picked 67 provincial chairs, including for Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul. The metropolitan holds a vital spot for the upcoming congress with 196 delegates on the docket.
Delegate polls in other cities are to continue until the end of October.
Pro-change deputy Özgür Çelik won the Istanbul office last Sunday, which has notably given rise to the question of whether Kılıçdaroğlu’s critics can wrestle control of the CHP from him next month amid a growing divide.
Fractions have plagued Türkiye’s oldest political party since the CHP leader lost a six-party opposition bloc’s best chance yet to unseat incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in May’s general elections. The Nation Alliance collectively ceded the parliamentary majority to the ruling Justice and Development Party-led (AK Party) People’s Alliance. Kılıçdaroğlu has been endlessly criticized for the bloc’s failure and repeatedly urged to step down.
Unrest has snowballed into an intraparty conflict between his supporters and faultfinders locked in a power struggle over CHP leadership, as even Kılıçdaroğlu’s trusted allies like Ekrem Imamoğlu, who became Istanbul mayor in a surprise 2019 win, came out of the woodwork demanding accountability.
Özgür Özel, Örsan Kunter Öymen and Ünal Karahasan have so far challenged Kılıçdaroğlu. A candidate needs approval signatures of at least 5% of all elected delegates, meaning 69 members, to be able to officially run for CHP chairpersonship.
Kılıçdaroğlu, who is yet to announce his bid formally, is likely to be nominated by delegates, while Özel is said to be the only other candidate close to achieving the required number.
Recouping in time for the local elections on March 31 is vital for the CHP’s chances of keeping Türkiye’s top cities – Istanbul, Ankara and even historical stronghold Izmir – in which it currently governs some 26 million of the Turkish population.
After its six-party coalition fell apart due to May’s defeat, the CHP is seemingly without allies, especially its biggest partner Good Party (IP) and unexpected friend Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), whose endorsement in 2019 helped put CHP mayors in Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in 25 years since the AK Party has been in power.
The IP and the HDP, widely condemned for alleged links to the PKK terrorist group, have announced plans to compete with their own mayoral candidates. The CHP and the IP have already clashed over ideological differences, and IP leader Meral Akşener has opposed Kılıçdaroğlu’s nomination from the get-go, even temporarily walking out of the bloc in an outburst that eroded her favor in public before the polls.
After May, she renounced the Nation Alliance but also teased the possibility of another electoral "cooperation."
Whether leadership is renewed or not, pundits say the CHP’s odds are low without the HDP’s endorsement and because of the unpopularity of both Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener.