A court in Turkiye has nullified the 2023 leadership vote of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in a severe escalation against the country’s struggling opposition.
It is the latest in a series of attempts against the CHP, the oldest political fixture in Turkiye, which chalked up a stunning victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in the 2024 local elections and is on the rise in the polls.
The verdict on Thursday invalidated the result of a leadership election that installed current party chief Ozgur Ozel, with the court appointing the party’s former chair, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost the election to Ozel, as interim leader.
The case was considered as a test of Turkiye’s fragile balance between democracy and more centralised power, and the verdict might push the opposition into further confusion and possibly infighting. It might also increase President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chances of extending his more than two-decade-long control over the massive NATO member country and significant emerging market economy.
The CHP said the decision was a “attempted coup” while the government claims it uses courts to target political opponents and says it restored Turks’ faith in the rule of law. The secular and centrist CHP, which has been polling roughly even with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted and conservative ruling AK Party, has also faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024, with hundreds of its members and elected officials arrested under corruption charges that the party denies.
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