Özgür Özel, a member of parliament from Turkey’s Manisa province, was elected as the chairman of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the early hours of Sunday morning (November 5). Özel’s victory unseats longtime CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu who also ran as the main opposition’s joint presidential candidate in May’s general election against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Kılıçdaroğlu’s election defeat had been followed by calls for leadership change from many disillusioned members of Turkey’s opposition.
The CHP party congress met on Saturday in Ankara to choose a new leader. Just one vote shy of outright victory in the first round of voting, Özel won the party chairmanship in the second round with 812 votes to Kılıçdaroğlu’s 536.
Kılıçdaroğlu era comes to an end
Sunday’s vote in the CHP party congress marks the end of Kılıçdaroğlu’s 13 year run at the helm of Turkey’s largest opposition party. Hailing from Turkey’s central-eastern province of Tunceli, Kılıçdaroğlu’s career in Turkish bureaucracy began in the 1990s when he served as an employee and eventually director for SSK, the country’s social security system. Nominated as the CHP’s candidate for mayor of Istanbul in 2009, Kılıçdaroğlu lost to Kadir Topbaş, the candidate from then-Prime Minister Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). Nevertheless, Kılıçdaroğlu was elected as CHP head the following year, where he oversaw the opposition’s response to events such as 2016’s failed coup d’etat attempt and 2017’s controversial presidential system referendum. Despite Kılıçdaroğlu’s reputation for electoral failure, the former chairman’s greatest success came in 2019’s local elections, which saw many of Turkey’s major cities including İstanbul and Ankara switch to opposition control, a victory driven in large part by an electoral alliance with center-right opposition parties engineered by Kılıçdaroğlu. 2019’s opposition success would serve as a model for Kılıçdaroğlu’s attempt to take down President Erdoğan in 2023. However, the opposition alliance’s ultimate selection of Kılıçdaroğlu as the candidate to challenge Erdoğan was criticized by some who pointed to the CHP Chairman’s previous electoral failures. Many including the İYİ Party, the second largest party in Kılıçdaroğlu’s electoral alliance, preferred the selection of either İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu or Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş as the candidate to challenge Erdoğan. Kılıçdaroğlu’s defeat to Erdoğan in the second round of voting on May 28th confirmed these doubts.
In addition to his electoral shortcomings, Kılıçdaroğlu’s political brand will likely be remembered for his efforts to unite ‘big-tent’ Turkish opposition coalitions against Erdoğan’s AKP, as well as his long-time efforts to expose corruption, favouritism, and political favors within the elite of the ruling party.
Calls for change
Kılıçdaroğlu’s failure to unseat Erdoğan led to talks of change within the CHP throughout the summer and fall. İmamoğlu was seen as a leading proponent of change within the party, and although the Istanbul Mayor did not challenge the chairman explicitly, the party was quickly split into pro-Kılıçdaroğlu and pro-İmamoğlu camps, evidenced by several intra-CHP votes over the past six months which saw competing candidates endorsed by both men. The election of İmamoğlu-endorsed Özgür Çelik as CHP İstanbul head last month over a Kılıçdaroğlu-endorsed candidate was one such sign that a rift had formed within the party, with the İstanbul mayor’s influence on the upswing.
Although Kılıçdaroğlu resisted calls for his resignation after falling short to President Erdoğan, the CHP head did express a willingness to hand over power, saying at a meeting with CHP mayors in July: “I do not wish to stand as candidate [for CHP leadership] again. I’ve grown tired; if there are others who are capable of taking over, they should make themselves known.”
Cordial congratulations follow heated rhetoric from KK
The party conference opened with a speech from Kılıçdaroğlu early Saturday, in which the chairman struck a stern tone, accusing other members of May’s electoral alliance of back-stabbing, saying “I was forced to enter the elections with a dagger in my back.” In his speech, Kılıçdaroğlu implicitly accused reform advocates within the CHP of similar back-stabbing behavior.
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Despite Kılıçdaroğlu’s stern words prior to the vote, Kılıçdaroğlu issued a congratulatory message on social media following Özel’s victory:
“Up until now, I have carried the trust of our great leader Atatürk with honor. Today, following the decision of our party congress, I bid farewell to the party chairmanship. I thank everyone who has been a part of our struggle up to this point. To our newly elected chairman Özgür Özel, I extend my congratulations and well wishes.”
İstanbul Mayor İmamoğlu also extended his congratulations to Özel, saying: “Now it is Turkey’s turn for change.”
Several non-CHP members from across the Turkish political spectrum also expressed their congratulations to newly elected Chairman Özel including DEVA Party Chairman Ali Babacan, İYİ Party Chairwoman Meral Akşener, and Memleket Party Chairman Muharrem İnce.
Özgür Özel’s October 17 Medyascope interview
Prior to his election as head of Turkey’s largest opposition party, then-candidate Özel appeared on Medyascope three weeks ago for an interview with Editor-in-Chief Ruşen Çakır and correspondent Göksel Göksu in which he described some of the behind-the-scenes details leading up to Kılıçdaroğlu’s general election defeat. Throughout the spring election campaign, Kılıçdaroğlu had released a series of videos recorded in his kitchen addressing major Turkish political and cultural issues. In one of these videos, Kılıçdaroğlu addressed the headscarf issue, a long-time lightning rod issue in Turkish politics and society.
Özel reportedly objected to Kılıçdaroğlu’s choice to record a video on the topic, feeling it would give Erdoğan an unnecessary polıtıcal opportunıty. In the video, the CHP Chairman promised to bring a bill to Turkey’s parliament to protect a woman’s right to wear a headscarf. Özel told the following to Medyascope regarding Kılıçdaroğlu’s choice to record a video on the controversial topic:
“If you come forward with a new bill proposal on the headscarf issue, then Erdoğan will come forward tomorrow without wasting a second and try to enshrine something like that in the constitution. We will be giving him a chance. Let’s rethink this, I said In response, the chairman told me ‘We’ve already recorded the video, it will be posted shortly.’ “
Özel’s rise to the top of Turkey’s largest opposition party comes as the country approaches major local elections in the spring of 2024. The CHP will be defending mayoral seats in İstanbul, Ankara, and other major cities following the disappointment of May’s general election loss. A fractured opposition electoral alliance and pending court case against İstanbul Mayor İmamoğlu also threaten opposition chances as the CHP and Özel seek to start fresh after 13 years of Kılıçdaroğlu leadership.
Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
