An Ankara court on Friday threw out a corruption case against Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on the grounds that it lacked substance, an Agence France-Presse journalist at the hearing said.
The case, which centered on alleged vote buying at a CHP party congress in November 2023, was rejected by the judge on the grounds that it was “moot.”
The lawsuit sought to overturn the result of the CHP vote on alleged vote rigging. That vote removed longtime party chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and elected Özgür Özel, who remains leader.
If successful, it could have unseated Özel.
The judge said the reason the lawsuit had become moot was because the CHP had since held a new vote and re-elected its leadership.
His decision prompted applause from spectators in the courtroom.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs admitted they were caught off guard by the ruling and vowed to appeal.
“We weren’t expecting the case to be dismissed. It was a surprise,” lawyer Onur Yusuf Üreğen told reporters, vowing to “pursue legal action and file an appeal.”
CHP leader Özel welcomed the ruling, saying the lawsuit was aimed at discrediting the party rather than resolving a legal dispute.
“The purpose was to make the CHP a subject of debate,” he said. “They thought, ‘We can’t defeat the CHP politically, so let’s create confusion.’ They tried to make us sick, to infect our system, but the CHP neither weakened nor accepted those toxins,” he said.
Turkey’s main stock index surged on Friday after the Ankara court’s decision.
Following the ruling, the Borsa İstanbul BIST 100 index rose 4.5 percent, while the banking index jumped nearly 8 percent. The Turkish lira and euro traded flat.
Turkey’s five-year credit default swaps (CDS), a measure of the country’s risk premium, fell by 13 basis points to 254, reflecting improved investor sentiment after the court rejected the case.
Critics denounced the case as another politically motivated bid to undermine Turkey’s oldest political party, which won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls.
The CHP denied the charges, accusing the government of using the judiciary to carry out a “political coup.”
To safeguard its leadership, it held another leadership vote at an extraordinary congress on September 21, at which it reelected Özel.
© Agence France-Presse with reporting from Turkish Minute