Court-appointed CHP leadership moves to consolidate control, distance itself from jailed Erdoğan rival

A court-appointed team moved Tuesday to consolidate control of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) by restoring pre-2023 party bodies, calling leadership and disciplinary meetings, changing the party website, dismissing headquarters staff and taking steps that appeared to distance the party from jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest potential rival.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the party leadership to Özgür Özel after the former’s defeat in Turkey’s 2023 presidential election, was returned to the post of CHP chairman by an Ankara appeals court ruling that annulled the CHP’s 2023 congress, the internal vote that brought Özel to power.

The ruling has thrown Turkey’s largest opposition party into a leadership crisis at a time when the CHP has become Erdoğan’s main electoral challenger after winning Turkey’s 2024 local elections and retaining control of İstanbul, Ankara and other major cities.

The court removed Özel and his elected leadership from their positions and restored Kılıçdaroğlu along with party organs that were in place before the 2023 congress, including the Party Assembly and the High Disciplinary Board.

Those bodies matter because they give Kılıçdaroğlu’s team the institutional tools to form a new executive leadership, control party administration and take disciplinary action against members who resist the court-ordered takeover.

Turkish media reported Tuesday that Kılıçdaroğlu plans to chair a meeting of the restored Party Assembly at CHP headquarters on June 1. The High Disciplinary Board is also to meet the same day. The Party Assembly is expected to discuss the formation of the Central Executive Board, the CHP’s top executive body, while the disciplinary board is expected to take up internal party cases.

The moves followed Sunday’s police operation at CHP headquarters in Ankara, where riot police broke through the gates, used tear gas and forced out Özel’s team after a three-day standoff. The police action gave Kılıçdaroğlu physical control of the party building, while the new meetings are intended to give his camp control of the party’s decision-making bodies.

The CHP’s official website was also changed after Kılıçdaroğlu’s return. Kılıçdaroğlu’s biography was added to the website under the title of chairman, while content entered after the court ruling and a section for the Presidential Candidate Office were removed.

The removal of the Presidential Candidate Office section was politically significant because the office had been set up under Özel to organize the presidential campaign of İmamoğlu, the jailed İstanbul mayor who is widely seen as Erdoğan’s most powerful rival in a future presidential race.

İmamoğlu was selected as the CHP’s presidential candidate before his arrest. His imprisonment turned him into the central figure in the party’s confrontation with Erdoğan, while Özel built much of his leadership around defending jailed CHP mayors and presenting their cases as part of a government campaign to weaken the opposition.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s return therefore threatens to reverse the CHP’s post-2023 strategy, which put İmamoğlu and jailed opposition mayors at the center of the party’s national campaign.

Bülent Tezcan, coordinator of the Presidential Candidate Office, said his office had left its building after Özel’s team left CHP headquarters but would continue working from the Turkish Parliament. He said the office would continue as an institution and that İmamoğlu remained the CHP’s presidential candidate under the party’s internal process.

The shift also reached CHP headquarters staff. Two dozen headquarters employees were dismissed after Kılıçdaroğlu took office under the court ruling. The dismissed employees worked in several units, including technical services, membership registration, secretarial offices, advisory teams and the party building used by the Presidential Candidate Office.

Özel’s camp has moved its work to parliament, where he remains a lawmaker and holds the position of CHP parliamentary group chairman. That role gives him a platform even though the court ruling removed him from the party chairmanship.

Turkish parties operate through both party headquarters and parliamentary groups. Kılıçdaroğlu now controls the headquarters through the court ruling, but Özel still has influence among the majority of CHP lawmakers and can use the parliamentary group to address the public.

Özel’s side is also seeking a way to force an extraordinary congress, according to Turkish media reports. Such a congress could challenge Kılıçdaroğlu’s court-restored leadership through a new vote by party delegates.

Özel has told CHP members, mayors and local officials not to resign from the party, saying the fight should remain inside the CHP rather than lead to a split.

In another sign that Kılıçdaroğlu’s team is asserting control, Turkish media reported that the court-restored leadership would resume Eid al-Adha holiday contacts with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), ending a CHP boycott of such visits that began after İmamoğlu’s arrest.

Özel’s CHP had used the boycott to signal that normal party relations with Erdoğan’s AKP could not continue while İmamoğlu and other CHP mayors were jailed. Resuming the visits suggests a return to a more conciliatory posture toward the ruling party.

Kılıçdaroğlu is also expected to hold a public holiday meeting at CHP headquarters on May 30, according to Turkish media reports.

The leadership change has prompted civil society criticism. Sixty-six civil society organizations and initiatives along with 720 citizens issued a joint statement calling the ruling an attack on society’s right to change its future through democratic politics.

The statement said the ruling targeted not only one political party but also the broader space where the public will is expressed, including associations, professional chambers, unions, universities and municipalities.

The crisis comes amid a larger crackdown on the CHP. İmamoğlu has been in prison since 2025 on charges he denies, while 20 CHP mayors  as well as dozens of municipal officials are jailed.