{"id":88733,"date":"2026-05-21T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/88733\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:37:08","slug":"turkish-court-suspends-chp-leadership-reinstates-former-chairman-kilicdaroglu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/88733\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish court suspends CHP leadership, reinstates former chairman K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Turkish appeals court has annulled the 2023 congress of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP), removing party leader \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel and the current party administration from office as an interim measure and reinstating former chairman Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and his team, Turkish Minute<\/a> reported, citing the state-run Anadolu news agency.<\/p>\n

The ruling by the 36th Civil Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Justice on Thursday concerns the CHP\u2019s 38th Ordinary Congress, where \u00d6zel defeated K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu in November 2023 and became party chairman.<\/p>\n

According to Anadolu, the court ruled that the congress was legally invalid and ordered K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and the party bodies elected under his leadership to return to office.<\/p>\n

The decision also means the current CHP administration will be temporarily removed from office.<\/p>\n

The decision, if implemented, will amount to one of the most dramatic judicial interventions in Turkey\u2019s main opposition party in recent years.<\/p>\n

The CHP has been under growing legal and political pressure since its major gains in the March 2024 local elections, with more than 20 of its mayors and hundreds of municipal officials detained or arrested in investigations the party says are politically motivated.<\/p>\n

The ruling triggered a sharp selloff on Borsa \u0130stanbul, with the BIST 100 index falling more than 6 percent intraday and the banking index losing more than 8 percent. Trading was temporarily halted after the losses triggered a market-wide circuit breaker, according to Turkish media reports.<\/p>\n

The congress case based allegations of irregularities in the 2023 leadership vote, including claims of vote buying and manipulation.<\/p>\n

The CHP has denied wrongdoing and has said the lawsuits are part of an effort to undermine the party\u2019s elected leadership.<\/p>\n

An Ankara court in October 2025\u00a0dismissed<\/a>\u00a0the same lawsuit, ruling that it had become moot because the CHP had since held another leadership vote and re-elected \u00d6zel at an extraordinary congress in September 2025.<\/p>\n

A finding that the congress was legally invalid means the congress at which \u00d6zel was elected chairman is being treated as if it had never taken place.<\/p>\n

That affects the status of \u00d6zel, the party\u2019s executive board and the party assembly, as well as decisions taken by the current leadership.<\/p>\n

The process could still be challenged before higher courts.<\/p>\n

The CHP\u2019s first reaction was to reject the ruling. Party officials told BirG\u00fcn daily they did not recognize the decision, while the CHP\u2019s Ankara provincial branch called on members to gather at party headquarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cShoulder to shoulder, as one, we invite everyone to our headquarters to defend democracy, solidarity and the will of the people,\u201d the provincial branch said.<\/p>\n

The party also decided that its headquarters should not be vacated, according to Turkish media reports.<\/p>\n

K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, meanwhile, welcomed the ruling in brief remarks to the pro-government TGRT Haber.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay it be auspicious for Turkey and the CHP,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu led the CHP for 13 years before losing the party leadership to \u00d6zel. He was also the opposition\u2019s joint presidential candidate in 2023, when he lost to President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n

The court decision comes one day after K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u00a0drew<\/a>\u00a0criticism from within the opposition for calling on the CHP to engage in \u201cpurification\u201d and \u201cself-reflection\u201d at a time when the party was facing a wave of investigations and arrests.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on X on Tuesday, K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu described the CHP as a \u201csacred trust\u201d and said the party must not become a refuge for wrongdoing, remarks that critics said appeared to lend credibility to corruption allegations used in ongoing operations targeting CHP-run municipalities.<\/p>\n

The CHP, Turkey\u2019s oldest political party, was established by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, the founder of modern Turkey, and has long identified itself with the country\u2019s republican and secular traditions.<\/p>\n

\u00d6zel and the CHP leadership have repeatedly accused Erdo\u011fan\u2019s government of using the courts to pressure the opposition and weaken the party ahead of the next presidential election, scheduled for 2028. The government denies interfering in the judiciary and says Turkish courts act independently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Turkish appeals court has annulled the 2023 congress of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP), removing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[47076,47077,39159,2031,425,47078,33603,429,8632,430,131,132,155],"class_list":["post-88733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-borsa-istanbul","tag-chp-leadership","tag-corruption-allegations","tag-crackdown-on-opposition","tag-democracy","tag-judicial-pressure","tag-kemal-kilicdaroglu","tag-oppression","tag-ozgur-ozel","tag-republican-peoples-party-chp","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116613785056219272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}