Turkey’s main opposition party is convening an emergency congress as it faces pressure from the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following the arrest of İstanbul’s mayor.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) will hold the extraordinary convention on Sunday, a move widely seen as an effort to shield itself from possible intervention by the government.
The decision comes amid an investigation into alleged irregularities in the November 2023 party congress at which Özgür Özel unseated longtime leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating claims that some delegates were bribed, raising fears that a court-appointed trustee could be used to take control of the party.
Erdoğan’s government has used similar tactics in the past, particularly against pro-Kurdish mayors, by replacing elected officials with trustees under the pretext of legal proceedings.
CHP leader Özel has framed the extraordinary convention as a bid to reaffirm his leadership and protect the party’s democratic mandate before any external interference.
The situation grew more volatile last month when İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival, was taken into custody.
İmamoğlu, who won Istanbul in 2019 and was re-elected in 2024, has long been seen as a potential future presidential contender and was officially nominated as the CHP’s presidential candidate on March 23, the day he was jailed.
Özel responded by announcing weekly “Freedom for İmamoğlu” rallies, starting this weekend, aiming to protest what he called an assault on democracy.
The mayor’s arrest has attracted sharp criticism from rights groups and international observers who accuse the Erdoğan administration of using the judiciary to eliminate opponents.
Prominent CHP figure Ümit Uysal, the mayor of Antalya’s Muratpaşa district, declared his candidacy for party leader.
Meanwhile, CHP parliamentary group leader Ali Mahir Başarır has publicly called for early elections, saying the country’s political crisis can no longer be contained.
The CHP, the party of the Turkish Republic’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has traditionally championed secularism and parliamentary democracy but has struggled to unseat Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has held power since 2002.