A court ruling removing the leadership of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has plunged the party into turmoil and exposed divisions that analysts say could give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan an opening to call early elections.
Last weekend, scenes of unprecedented chaos unfolded when riot police stormed the Ankara headquarters of the CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party, firing tear gas as they threw out its elected leaders.
The intervention came days after a court removed leader Özgür Özel from party leadership in a move that critics have denounced as the latest brazen attempt to remove Erdoğan’s political rivals ahead of elections, which are due by May 2028.
“The speed and intensity of these recent moves suggest that elections may come even earlier than anticipated … that the CHP remains a serious threat to Erdoğan,” Seren Selvin Korkmaz, co-founder of the Istanbul Political Research Institute, told Agence France-Presse.
“The aim is not merely to divide the opposition, but to directly paralyze the party that still has the organizational capacity, electoral strength and political legitimacy to become an alternative to the government,” she said.
The ruling overturned the 2023 congress that elected Özel and reinstated his defeated rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as party leader, triggering a damaging internal legitimacy crisis within the CHP.
In that context, calling an early election could be a logical next move to capitalize on that weakness.
“From Erdoğan’s perspective, early elections could be advantageous if the CHP is forced to enter the process divided, legally constrained and internally exhausted,” Korkmaz explained.
Hamish Kinnear, principal analyst at Global Risk Insight, said the crisis inside the CHP could drag on for months or even years.
“The government will doubtless be considering early elections given the new fault line in the main opposition party,” he told AFP.
Although Turkey’s constitution limits presidents to two terms, Erdoğan could run again if parliament votes to call early elections before his term ends in 2028.
The CHP has risen in the polls since leading mass street protests following the March 2025 arrest of its presidential candidate, Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s most powerful political rival, with Özel emerging as a key figure within the party.
After being forced out of CHP headquarters on Sunday, he defiantly climbed onto a water cannon vehicle before marching through heavy rain to parliament, flanked by supporters, his white shirt soaked.
‘Massacre of democracy’
Pressure on the CHP has soared since its sweeping local election victory over Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2024, with more than a dozen of its mayors arrested on charges ranging from graft to terrorism ties.
“Erdoğan suddenly panicked,” Özel told AFP on Sunday, describing the Turkish leader’s moves against the legitimately elected opposition as “a massacre of democracy.”
“Just as he imprisoned the presidential candidate who could defeat him, he now wants to decide who his rivals will be and who will lead the opposition parties. He wants to win the next election this way.”
With İmamoğlu behind bars, observers say Erdoğan’s focus has now shifted to Özel as the party’s likely presidential candidate.
During last year’s protests, Özel emerged as the face of the opposition, but has also been targeted by a series of lawsuits although he has avoided prosecution due to parliamentary immunity.
“Modern-day autocrats want to preserve the facade of democracy, so they don’t do away with elections,” said Gönül Tol of the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
“The ballot box doesn’t matter if you get to pick your own opponents and jail those who could beat you.”
‘Overt manipulation’
Erdoğan’s AKP has denied any role in the turmoil embroiling the CHP, with its spokesman Omer Celik describing the party as “more chaotic internally than the Middle East.”
During the 2023 presidential election, which Kılıçdaroğlu lost to Erdoğan, a government source told AFP that the longtime CHP leader was the AKP’s preferred opponent.
But Korkmaz said such “overt” moves to refashion the opposition would not be lost on the electorate.
“At a time of deep economic hardship, such overt manipulation of the political field may generate a broader backlash,” she said.
For now, observers say Özel’s strongest card would be to stay in the CHP, where he was voted its parliamentary group chair on Friday.
Özel told protesters in İzmir on Tuesday he would push for an extraordinary party congress as soon as possible.
Korkmaz said Özel becoming parliamentary group chair was important.
“It keeps him inside the institutional body of the party while contesting the capture of the party headquarters.”
© Agence France-Presse