CHP Rival Factions Hold Separate Ankara Meetings After Court Overturns 2023 Congress

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) held two separate group meetings in Ankara on Tuesday after a court decision overturned the party's 2023 congress, suspended Ozgur Ozel's administration and reinstated Kemal Kilicdaroglu as party leader.

“The heated rivalry inside the Republican People's Party, the largest opposition party in Turkey, took a major turn on Tuesday, revealing the scale of the split afflicting the party”

Al-Jazeera Net

The standoff began building early in the day ahead of the party's scheduled parliamentary group meeting at 1:30 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m. GMT), as uncertainty grew over whether Kilicdaroglu or Ozel would take the podium.

Al-Jazeera Net

Supporters gathered outside the Turkish Parliament's gate from the morning hours after both figures announced plans to speak, while riot police remained on standby near access points.

Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus announced that visitors would not be admitted to the CHP group meeting, citing security concerns at the building's entrances.

Kilicdaroglu later abandoned plans to attend the parliamentary meeting and called party members to the CHP headquarters in Ankara as Ozel proceeded with the parliamentary group meeting and took the podium.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli urged Ozel to stop bringing CHP's internal disputes into the national political arena, arguing that the party was facing visible internal divisions and calling for order to be restored.

Kilicdaroglu echoed a call for restraint previously made by Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas and urged party supporters to avoid internal conflict, writing on X: "Those who seek to turn this party's own members against each other by calling for a mass public uprising should know that we will never allow those dirty ambitions to succeed,".

Institut Montaigne

While Ozel addressed lawmakers at Parliament, Kilicdaroglu spoke to party members at the CHP headquarters, where he pledged to restore clean politics within the party amid ongoing corruption and bribery investigations involving some members.

Ozel framed the leadership dispute as part of a broader effort to weaken the CHP as an institution and leave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan without a viable political challenger, telling lawmakers, "This is the place of those who are elected."

The crisis is rooted in a court ruling that annulled CHP's 2023 congress, suspended Ozel's administration, reinstated Kilicdaroglu and ordered a new party congress.

Institut Montaigne linked Turkey’s broader political turmoil to the arrest on March 20 of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, describing him as an influential figure in the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the main opponent of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Türkiye's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) held two separate group meetings in Ankara on Tuesday after a court decision overturned the party's 2023 congress, suspended Ozgur Ozel's administration and reinstated Kemal Kilicdaroglu as party leader”

Türkiye Today

It said security forces stormed Imamoglu’s home on the morning of March 19, the day after an Istanbul University committee revoked his 1994 university degree on alleged grounds of irregularities, and arrested him along with some of his associates on charges of corruption and membership in a terrorist organization.

Institut Montaigne also said polls show that 60% of the population are not convinced by the legitimacy of a judicial process seen as political above all, and that they do not regard the charges as credible.

In its analysis, Soli Özel called on the EU not to drift into a somnambulant, wait-and-see posture and to back a mobilization from which a new political alignment with regional consequences could emerge.

The article further described how Turkey’s strategic importance and relations with the European Union in cooperation and security were reinforced, including with some member states previously more distant from Ankara.