Turkey’s main opposition CHP party, whose leadership could be overturned next week, has vowed to defy what it sees as state-led efforts to defang it, but experts warn the escalating political struggle risks harming the economy.
Just days after the Republican People’s Party (CHP) marked its 102nd anniversary, its leadership will be called into question at an Ankara court on Monday which could invalidate the result of its 2023 congress on grounds of alleged fraud, ousting leader Ozgur Ozel.
“The government is trying to reshape the CHP by overwhelming it with legal problems. But that’s not possible, neither politically nor legally,” the party’s vice president Murat Bakan told AFP.
“What they’re trying to create is an opposition in name only, that will not have any impact on election results like in Russia or Belarus.”
Monday’s court case is one of a string of legal moves targeting the party that won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party in 2024’s local elections and has been rising in the polls.
Over the past year, a growing number of elected CHP officials have been detained on terror or graft allegations, among them Istanbul’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whose jailing sparked Turkey’s worst street protest in a decade.
Last week, a court ousted the leadership of the CHP’s Istanbul arm over vote-buying allegations, increasing the risk of an identical move against the party’s national leadership on Monday.
If the Ankara court declares the CHP’s congress result to be null and void, it could facilitate the return of former leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, 76, a lacklustre politician who chalked up a string of electoral defeats and barely made any dents in the armour of Erdogan’s AKP.
When Ozel took over, within months he led the CHP to a resounding local election victory, later becoming the face of the street protests that erupted after the arrest of Imamoglu, the only politician seen as capable of beating Erdogan at the ballot box.
Since then, Ozel has led weekly protests that have drawn huge crowds, even in bastions of support for AKP, infuriating Erdogan.
“They don’t want us resisting in the streets… (but) the CHP is not and never will be His Majesty’s opposition,” Ozel told tens of thousands of supporters in Istanbul on Wednesday.
“I would rather be buried than be an opposition leader who pleases Erdogan!”
– Showdown at party HQ? –
In a move to safeguard the party’s leadership, the CHP announced it will hold an extraordinary congress on September 21.
So even if the court ousts the leadership and puts Kilicdaroglu in charge, Ozel has every chance of being reelected as leader just six days later, the CHP’s Murat Bakan said.
But political analyst Berk Esen warned that a ‘null and void’ ruling would likely trigger a major internal conflict at the party’s Ankara headquarters.
“The current leadership might refuse to leave the headquarters and we could see an interesting scenario with the CHP having two heads at the same time,” he said.
The government’s legal pressure on the CHP has not gone unnoticed by voters.
“They trample everything in order to stay in power — laws, democracy, the economy,” said Ahmet Ozer, a pensioner from Ankara.
“But they will soon see the people’s will is stronger: the more pressure they exert, the more determined I am to support the CHP,” he told AFP.
Despite the adversity, Bakan agrees that both the party and its supporters have grown stronger.
– ‘The party is stronger’ –
“Since Ozgur Ozel took over, the party has grown, its electorate has broadened as has the number of members,” he said.
And the judicial pressure had helped “consolidate the electorate. The sense of unity and solidarity between voters has got stronger,” he said.
“If the government leaves us with no option, we can bring the voters onto the streets and organise other means of protest,” he warned, without saying what other strategies the party had up its sleeve.
But the threat of political turmoil could deal a dangerous blow to Turkey’s fragile economy, experts say.
When the court ousted the CHP’s Istanbul leadership, the country’s stock market tumbled more than 5 percent, highlighting the susceptibility of Turkey’s economy to a political crackdown.
“The Turkish economy largely relies on support from foreign investors,” economist Yakup Kucukkale told AFP.
“In the event of political chaos, they would flee the country which would likely trigger the collapse of the Istanbul stock exchange and the lira.”
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© Agence France-Presse
