Turkish authorities detained 13 delegates from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) after a court declared the party’s 2023 leadership congress legally void, BBC Turkish reported.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating allegations that delegates’ votes were influenced during the CHP’s 38th Ordinary Congress, held in Ankara in November 2023.
Detentions were carried out in İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Şanlıurfa, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis and Malatya.
The delegates are accused of violating Turkey’s Political Parties Law, accepting bribes and laundering assets obtained from crime.
The court ruling annulled the congress that brought Özgür Özel to the CHP leadership and also invalidated later extraordinary congresses, bylaw changes and amendments to the party program.
The ruling opened the way for former CHP chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the party assembly and the disciplinary board elected at the previous congress to return to office.
Kılıçdaroğlu changed his title on social media to “chairman of the Republican People’s Party.”
The Supreme Election Council rejected an appeal filed by Özel’s leadership team.
Kılıçdaroğlu told Özel in a phone call on May 22 that he would take the party to a vote at the appropriate time, according to BBC Turkish.
The court intervention marks a new stage in pressure on the CHP, which defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2024 local elections.