Turkey’s opposition has opted for change and appointed a new leader following the Republican People’s Party (CHP) congress in Ankara, where delegates appointed last night Özgür Özel as the new secretary general, ending Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s 13 years as the visible head of Turkey’s main opposition party. Özel, who failed to win a sufficient majority of votes after the first round of voting, was elected new secretary general in the second round receiving the support of 812 of the 1,366 delegates present at the 38th party congress, while the ousted Kılıçdaroğlu received only 536.
His voice hoarse, Özel fulfilled the expectations of those seeking change in the main opposition party by promising in his first speech after his election reforms in the CHP, a better future, and “bringing smiles to the people”. “This is the greatest honour of my life. We are heading on the road to victory in the (2024) local elections,” Özel added, accompanied at his side by Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, one of the most visible heads of the party that has sought to oust Kılıçdaroğlu, whose figure has been strongly questioned inside and outside the CHP after his resounding defeat to Erdoğan in the last presidential elections, despite the fact that many polls favoured Kılıçdaroğlu and he was leading a coalition of more than a half dozen of opposition parties.
Kılıçdaroğlu, whose political future had been in doubt after the defeat, came to Turkey’s main opposition party in 2010 after the forced resignation of Deniz Baykal, who in his final years as secretary general was marred by scandals and criticism of his lack of leadership in the face of an already powerful Erdoğan. Although he came promising change and presenting himself as the “Turkish Gandhi“, the fact is that Kılıçdaroğlu never succeeded in winning over a majority of Turkish society, and under his rule the CHP never surpassed the 25% votes mark.
Faced with this failure, the 74-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu, who has described attempts to dethrone him as a “stab in the back“, always reacted with a heavy hand, pointing the finger at others, silencing those who questioned him and clinging on to office, including after his latest defeat against Erdoğan, and until the last moment tried to postpone the congress until after the local elections, scheduled in Turkey for 31 March 2024.
Özgür Özel, 49, who spent much of his life working as a pharmacist in the city of Izmir until he was elected MP in 2011, has pledged after being elected new leader of the Turkish opposition to mobilise the CHP party to “compensate for the great sadness” of the serious electoral defeat suffered in the May presidential election. “I have proposed a policy of courage and determination, against the shameful and passive policies that our party has been pursuing,” he told congress delegates, promising to “completely change Turkish politics”. It’s no clear at all, however, whether the arrival of Özel – a former ally of Kılıçdaroğlu himself – will bring real change to a party where many voices denounce a lack of internal democracy and a departure from its principles, established by Atatürk himself.
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As a history lover, Pablo Gómez was captivated by Turkey from the first day he visited it in 2006: he got married there, has a house there… and has since become an expert on Turkey’s current affairs. With a long experience in media, he has been at the helm of hispanatolia.com since 2011.
