Turkish Court Overturns Opposition CHP Leadership Election Result

A court in Turkey annulled the 2023 leadership election of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Thursday, escalating pressure on the country’s embattled opposition.

The ruling is the latest in a series of moves targeting the CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party, which scored a decisive victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in the 2024 local elections and has been gaining in opinion polls.

The court overturned the result of a leadership contest that brought in current party head Ozgur Ozel, ordering the party’s former chair, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – who lost to Ozel – to serve as interim leader.

The case tested Turkey’s fragile balance between democracy and increasingly centralized power, and the decision could plunge the opposition into further disarray and possible internal conflict, while potentially boosting Erdogan’s chances of extending his more than two-decade rule of the NATO member and major emerging economy.

The CHP rejected the ruling as an “attempted coup”, while the government – which denies using courts to target political opponents – said the decision reaffirmed Turks’ faith in the rule of law.

The secular, centrist CHP, which runs roughly even with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted and conservative AK Party in polls, has faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024, with hundreds of its members and elected officials detained on corruption charges that the party denies.

Among those imprisoned for over a year is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main rival and the CHP’s official candidate for a presidential election scheduled for 2028 but which could be moved to 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.

Ali Mahir Basarir, CHP deputy parliamentary group chair, told Reuters the ruling “is an attempted coup carried out through the judiciary [and] a blow against the will of 86 million people”. Those behind it “will be held accountable before the courts”, he said.

Turkey’s Borsa Istanbul .XU100 index fell 6 percent in response, triggering a market-wide circuit breaker, while government bonds declined.

The central bank sold billions of dollars in foreign exchange to ease the fallout, four traders said.

In March last year, Imamoglu’s detention prompted a selloff that pushed inflation expectations higher and temporarily reversed a rate-cutting cycle. Investors said the latest political turmoil would be monitored for similar risks.

The ruling by the Ankara court overturned a decision by a lower court last year that had dismissed the case surrounding the CHP’s 2023 congress as lacking substance.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third-largest, called the court decision a “black stain” on Turkish democracy.

The reinstated CHP leader Kilicdaroglu, who had largely withdrawn from public view since his electoral defeat three years ago, called for calm and common sense, saying he hoped Turkey would benefit from the decision.