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Overconfidence appears to have boosted the ego of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel, after unprecedented wins in last year’s local elections. Özel reiterated his early remarks that he would quit politics if the CHP cannot win future elections, as reported in the Ekonomim newspaper on Tuesday.
The party leader, a former pharmacist who won the top seat in Türkiye’s oldest party 12 years after he was elected into Parliament for the CHP, was overtly confident when he pledged to quit politics when he was elected as CHP chair in 2023 if he could not secure a win for his party in the municipal elections.
Indeed, the CHP, although trailing behind the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in most places, largely succeeded in the March 2024 elections, especially in the strongholds of the AK Party. But this time, he sounded complacent as the next general election is still three years away. “I will quit politics the night we are defeated. I believe that a party should abandon even the campaign song in an election it lost,” he said, as he cited polls favoring his party.
The opposition leader counts on a reaction to the arrests of CHP mayors on charges of corruption that paved the way for nationwide rallies by the party. Before his arrest, Istanbul’s CHP mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, was nominated as the party’s future presidential candidate. After his arrest, the CHP escalated its campaign for early elections, claiming that the arrests were politically motivated and sought to curb the growing favor among the electorate for the party. Özel has repeatedly called the government to set November 2025 as the early election date.
Even if Özel does not quit, he may lose his chair, however, as a trial is still underway over his election to the top office of the CHP in 2023.
A court in Ankara, the capital, adjourned a hearing set for June on allegations of vote-buying in the election to Sept. 8. The decision provides temporary relief for Özel, whose associates are accused of manipulating and bribing delegates to vote for him in the intraparty election. The trial is deepening the cracks between Özel and his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, over the fate of the CHP. Lawyers for the plaintiffs told the June hearing that the 2023 election should be nullified because Imamoğlu, who chaired the convention that included the vote, did not act neutrally, pointing out an earlier indictment and ruling to that extent. They said Imamoğlu coordinated “multiple crimes” to manipulate delegates to vote for Özel, citing investigations for more than 100 suspects, including nine lawmakers.
Lawyers stated that delegates eligible to vote were bribed before the election, while some delegates were promised employment in exchange for their votes.
If the election result is canceled, the party leadership would almost certainly revert to Kılıçdaroğlu, who was ousted after losing the 2023 presidential race to incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leaving the party in crisis.
Kılıçdaroğlu has already said that he would be willing to take on the party leadership again if the court overturned the primary result, sparking an uproar within the CHP against the former chair.
