A pale shade of its former self, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), oldest of its kind in the Republic of Türkiye, is set to observe its 100th anniversary on Saturday. The party’s leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and supporters will visit Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the republic and the CHP, on the occasion.
Established by Atatürk on Sept. 9, 1923, the party had only seven chairpersons since then, along with several briefly serving as acting chairs. Nowadays, it trails behind the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) with escalating calls for Kılıçdaroğlu's resignation.
Political parties were a novelty for Türkiye in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, and it took about 27 years for a genuine multiparty democratic election to be held in the country after the foundation of the CHP. Atatürk, the architect of the country’s War of Independence after World War I, sought to introduce a progressive democracy in Türkiye long ruled by a monarchy, but his experiment with the new system would take years to develop. Originally conceived as the People’s Party, the CHP received the word "Republican" in its title in 1924. From its inception to 1950, it was the only ruling party, before losing the election to the Democrat Party, founded by former CHP members.
Like other parties, it had its share of blows to democracy and was shut down by the coup regime that took power on Sept.12, 1980. It was reinstated in 1992, on the 69th anniversary of its foundation.
Since its foundation, the CHP was chaired by Atatürk, his close friend and war hero Ismet Inönü, who has been an influential name in Turkish politics when the CHP switched to the opposition after the 1950 elections. Other names heading the party, include former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, former Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin, journalist and former Minister Altan Öymen and former minister and veteran politician Deniz Baykal. Kılıçdaroğlu succeeded Baykal in 2010 when the latter stepped down following a sex tape scandal.
The CHP represents a secular ideology formed by Atatürk and portrayed itself as a social democrat party for decades. Six arrows in its famous flag symbolize principles and ideologies determined by the founding fathers of the party. These include "Republicanism, populism, nationalism, laicism (or secularism), statism and reformism." Its orthodox mindset rarely changed since the 1920s, though Kılıçdaroğlu sought to win more supporters by courting conservatives and far-left, as well as supporters of the terrorist group PKK, which is affiliated with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of Kılıçdaroğlu’s supporters in the May 2023 presidential race. His deviation from traditional principles, however, alienated old-school CHP supporters and prominent party names, who either resigned or were forced to give up top seats in the party under Kılıçdaroğlu.
Kılıçdaroğlu is also criticized for refusing to heed resignation calls after successive defeats to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party since 2010. But he is hardly the longest-serving chair of the CHP as this record belongs to Ismet Inönü, who was elected as chair in 1938, shortly after Atatürk's demise. He served as head of the party for about 33 years before stepping down in his old age and succeeded by Bülent Ecevit in 1972. Ecevit, who was briefly detained by the military junta in 1980, resigned from the post one month later and never returned to the CHP again. Deniz Baykal is credited with reviving the CHP after his election to the chair of the reinstated party on Sept. 9, 1992.