Özel challenges Kılıçdaroğlu for CHP chairmanship
Özgür Özel, the leader of the main opposition, has called on Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for an in-house election for the leadership of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in order to end the ongoing legal turmoil.
“I am making an open call from this podium: Let’s go to an election with 2 million members of the CHP and the defeated will leave politics. I announce that I will quit politics if my votes remain under 90 percent,” Özel said at the weekly parliamentary group of the CHP on July 14.
Özel, former CHP chairman, was ousted from his position after a local court reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu as the party leader due to fraud allegations in 2023 convention during which the latter lost.
Özel, still a member of the CHP and parliamentary group leader, recalled that Kılıçdaroğlu recently stressed the need of keeping the unity of the CHP and called Özel and his friends not to leave the CHP by forming a new political organization.
