The power struggle in the CHP has been decided: a dual leadership consisting of party leader Özgür Özel and Ekrem Imamoğlu is expected to pull the Social Democrats out of the depths.
Istanbul. The Turkish opposition party CHP wants to emerge from the crisis with new leadership and a generational change: The previous party leader, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, was deposed at the party congress in Ankara by a new dual leadership made up of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, and the new party leader, Özgür Özel. Özel said that as head of the CHP, he wanted to turn hopelessness into new hope. He swore in the party in March’s local elections, in which Imamoğlu wants to defend his position as mayor of Istanbul so he can run as the CHP’s presidential candidate against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2028. But it will be difficult for the CHP to start over because the party is deeply divided .
The nearly 1,400 delegates at the party conference elected 49-year-old Özel as president in the second round on Sunday. Özel, a trained pharmacist and previously leader of the CHP faction in parliament, received 812 votes, 74-year-old Kiliçdaroğlu received 536. He predicted defeat and left the party conference while the votes were being counted.
The vote ended Kiliçdaroğlu’s 13-year tenure as head of Turkey’s oldest party. The secular CHP describes itself as social democrats, but has long supported the Turkish military’s claim to power. The party, which represents a quarter of Turkish voters, was last in government around 30 years ago and has lost almost every election since 2010. The biggest success was the victories in the 2019 local elections, in which the CHP won power in Istanbul and Ankara.