A court in Turkiye has annulled the 2023 leadership election of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in a sharp escalation against the country’s embattled opposition.
It is the latest in a string of moves targeting the CHP, Turkiye’s oldest political faction that won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in the 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls.
Recommended Stories
The ruling on Thursday overturned the result of a leadership election that brought in current party head Ozgur Ozel, with the court naming the party’s former chair, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – who lost the election to Ozel – as interim leader.
The case was seen as a test of Turkiye’s shaky balance between democracy and increasingly centralised power, and the ruling may throw the opposition into further disarray and possible infighting. It could also boost Erdogan’s chances of extending his more than two-decade rule of the big NATO member country and major emerging market economy.
The CHP rejected the ruling as an “attempted coup”, while the government – which denies criticism that it uses courts to target political opponents – said it renewed Turks’ faith in the rule of law.
The secular and centrist CHP, running roughly even with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted and conservative ruling AK Party in polls, has also faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024, in which hundreds of its members and elected officials have been detained as part of corruption charges that the party denies.
