Turkey’s main opposition – the Republican People’s Party (CHP) – fears that the country’s authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is planning snap elections to sidestep constitutional limits on his power and secure another term as president. CHP sources told Euractiv that judicial interference in the opposition’s leadership race forms part of Erdoğan’s strategy to trigger elections that would bypass constitutional limits blocking him from a third presidential term.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “It is a huge signal that Erdoğan is going for a snap election,” said senior CHP figures. “He is crippling the main opposition.” The Turkish political landscape has been in turmoil since a court ruling on 21 May reinstated a former presidential candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as the CHP’s leader. The CHP, affiliated with the Party of European Socialists, supports a secular state against Erdoğan’s religious conservatism. The party alleges that the court decision was politically motivated under pressure from the Turkish president, and his AKP party, to incapacitate the opposition. At a CHP congress in November 2023, rival Özgur Özel had defeated Kılıçdaroğlu for the leadership after the latter lost to Erdoğan in in May 2023 presidential elections. Overriding the decision, an Ankara court annulled the party congress and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu as CHP leader. In March 2025, CHP presidential hopeful and Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was arrested, triggering mass protests. Prosecutors are seeking a cumulative prison sentence of 2,430 years on charges including “establishing a criminal organisation”.