The Republican People's Party (CHP) has expelled a controversial member for his “harsh criticism” of party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, CHP officials said Wednesday amid a fractious climate in Türkiye’s biggest opposition party since a crushing defeat in May elections.
CHP’s High Disciplinary Board has ruled to discharge Tanju Özcan, the mayor of northern Bolu province who has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of Kılıçdaroğlu after the latter lost to incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a historic runoff the opposition’s best chance yet to unseat him.
Özcan has been a disputed figure in his party long before the electoral defeat. He was temporarily expelled last year over “inappropriate behavior” and after his referral to the disciplinary board earlier this month, he launched a march from Bolu to the capital Ankara chanting for “Justice and Change" and rallying hundreds in agreement.
When he ended his march in front of the CHP headquarters, Özcan publicly called on Kılıçdaroğlu to resign. His argument has been that Kılıçdaroğlu “forced” his presidential nomination on the CHP-led six-party opposition bloc Nation Alliance and “led the CHP on for 13 years for nothing.”
“Even if I am expelled from the CHP, I will continue my path independently,” Özcan was quoted as saying on that day.
Özcan, also an infamously anti-refugee figure, is not the only one Kılıçdaroğlu has cut loose in the past two months.
The Bolu mayor hasn’t been alone in his rhetoric since several prominent figures within the CHP, including its popular Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, have been campaigning for change and accountability, something that has dragged the CHP into chaos since May.
Kılıçdaroğlu has remained resolute in keeping his seat, even when a plot by Imamoğlu to replace him was exposed last week, revealing deepening cracks in the party between Kılıçdaroğlu’s cadres and Imamoğlu supporters. He shook hands with Imamoğlu and smiled to his face at an event days after the video showing Imamoğlu organizing a secret meeting to discuss ways to oust Kılıçdaroğlu from his seat leaked but he has been thwarting any obstacles to his continued reign in the meantime.
He suspended numerous heads of the party’s local branches across Türkiye known for their support of Imamoğlu.
In a move attributed to him, all members of his central executive committee had walked out in early June and he imposed a ban on Gökhan Günaydın, the party’s parliamentary group deputy chair and a close confidant of Imamoğlu on attendance to the party’s central executive committee. Elsewhere, he has cut off funding to Halk TV, a pro-CHP TV station that now backs the advocates of the “change” campaign.
Still, dissidents retain a majority in the CHP’s party assembly, threatening his iron-fisted rule of the party since 2010, when he replaced Deniz Baykal, a leader who adhered to a more orthodox party policy.
Kılıçdaroğlu has conceded that he was “not a fan” of the top CHP seat and could step down “if a candidate with a clean sheet” emerges – a pointed remark toward Imamoğlu who is tangled in several lawsuits on corruption and insult – but supporters of a change in the powerful party assembly have reached 31, a critical threshold for Kılıçdaroğlu that may pave the way for the “extraordinary congress” Imamoğlu talked about in the leaked video.
The infighting also threatens the opposition’s odds in an upcoming local election scheduled for March 2024 when the mayoral seats of top metropolitans like Istanbul and Ankara will be up for grabs.
