Struggling to maintain a facade of unity for months, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) finally made it clear that it is now fully divided, as two rallies over the weekend indicated.
At the party’s headquarters in Ankara, former Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was reinstated to office after a court ruling earlier in May, appeared before his supporters for a major rally on the occasion of Qurban Bayram, or Eid al-Adha, on Saturday. A few kilometers away at Güvenpark in the heart of the capital, Özgür Özel, whose chairmanship was annulled by the same court ruling, convened an apparently larger crowd, around the same time.
Kılıçdaroğlu was relentless in his criticism of the administration of Özel, who is now relegated to the post of CHP’s parliamentary group chair, while Özel implied Kılıçdaroğlu betrayed the party, something that was more vocal among his supporters who chanted “Traitor Kemal” as Özel spoke.
Türkiye’s oldest party, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also the founder of the Republic of Türkiye, succumbed to infighting after Kılıçdaroğlu lost a presidential bid against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2023. Within months, Özel and his team, including Istanbul’s former Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, mobilized against him, and in November 2023, Özel won an intraparty election against Kılıçdaroğlu. The congress where the election was held, however, was stained with allegations of corruption. The allegations by former delegates of the party made it into a formal lawsuit, and an appeals court concluded the case recently by ordering Özel out of office and reinstating Kılıçdaroğlu. Last week, Özel and his supporters resisted an eviction notice issued by Kılıçdaroğlu’s lawyers for a few hours before leaving the headquarters following chaotic scenes of attack on police by the Özel supporters.
