It is the latest in a string of moves targeting the CHP, Turkey’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.
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 Turkey’s shaky balance between democracy and increasingly centralized 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, Al Jazeera reported.
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.
Among those imprisoned for more than a year is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is Erdogan’s main rival and the CHP’s official candidate for a presidential election set for 2028, but that could come next year.
Ozel, the CHP’s combative chair, who has risen to prominence since Imamoglu’s arrest, convened party leaders to discuss a response to the court ruling while protests were planned.