Still basking in its victory in last year’s municipal elections, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is confident of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Yet, the party appears indecisive in how to achieve it. A senior CHP figure said they were planning multiple rallies in the coming days in response to the arrest of two of its mayors who ran the Istanbul districts Esenyurt and Beşiktaş. “We will take more general, more tougher, more important steps. It will be a process to take over the government,” Ali Mahir Başarır, party’s group deputy chair told reporters over the weekend.
Since the arrest of Beşiktaş’ CHP Mayor Rıza Akpolat earlier this week, the party’s administration has scrambled to respond, while Erdoğan, who handed multiple defeats to Türkiye’s oldest party in the past two decades, implied more investigations may be underway into corruption in CHP-run municipalities. CHP leader Özgür Özel held a parliamentary group meeting on Saturday and convened the party’s assembly on Sunday in Istanbul for two extraordinary meetings. Flanked by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, Özel has been a staple of CHP rallies since the arrest of Akpolat on charges of awarding tenders to a criminal gang. The CHP claims the charges are politically motivated, while Akpolat deflated blame on his subordinates on suspicious tender processes in Istanbul’s upscale district, a stronghold of the CHP.
The CHP, which has always trailed behind the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in successive elections, portrays itself as the only hope for critics of AK Party governments whose parties lagged far behind the main opposition in general and municipal elections. However, patience runs thin even among the party’s electorate as Özgür Özel, who took the reins in the party after another presidential victory by Erdoğan in 2023, is criticized for not pushing the government into an early election. The next general election is scheduled for 2028. Erdoğan signaled he may run again though this will likely require a legal amendment as this is his last tenure under current laws. Özel alternately suggested an early election within months or next year, while media reports say the party may push for a by-election through mass resignation of its lawmakers.
Özel has promised to make life challenging for the government after Erdoğan announced a relatively low minimum wage for 2025. Earlier this month, the CHP announced plans for mass rallies to protest economic conditions but their attention now appears turned to rallies to defend Akpolat and Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer, who was detained last year on charges of links to the PKK terrorist group.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who was already tried in a corruption probe regarding his past tenure as mayor of the city’s Beylikdüzü district, claims he may be the next target of “politically motivated” probes. Imamoğlu is favored by Özel as the CHP’s presidential candidate for the next election though his detractors within the party recently took to social media and urged Özel to nominate Mansur Yavaş, CHP mayor for the capital Ankara.
The CHP’s perceived underperformance in rallying voters after the municipal elections amused even Erdoğan. Last week, Erdoğan repeatedly mocked the opposition party’s “red card” campaign that was already under fire by prominent names supporting Özel. A red card campaign simply involves showing a red card, as in football, to the government and the party’s lawmakers occasionally perform the stunt at Parliament and elsewhere.
“We are looking for seriousness in the opposition but I am not sure if they are doing this or playing games. They have been the laughing stock of the youth,” Erdoğan told an AK Party congress in the southern province of Adana over the weekend. “I sincerely recommend Mr. Özel to come up with more card games. They may deal cards on poker tables or build a house of cards from their red cards,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan has also pointed out intraparty fighting in the CHP. “Instead of serving people, they try to stab each other. They are entangled in corruption, theft, irregularities. The more you dig, more scandals you encounter,” Erdoğan said.
The president responded to Özel’s remarks about the corruption in CHP-run municipalities. “You don’t know anything anyway. If you don’t know what is going on in municipalities run by your party, you should leave your post. Instead of accusing us and the judiciary (of launching ‘politically motivated’ probes), you have to fight against this order of theft growing like a poison ivy within the CHP,” Erdoğan said.
Although the CHP has capitalized on the success in municipal elections, Özel has so far not offered any alternatives to the electorate he plans to garner votes in the next vote. Challenges in the economy are a weak spot for the government, and the CHP has turned all its attention to this field now. He revealed his “big surprise” earlier this month before he pledged to rally the public for the resolution of problems affecting the country. This “big surprise” was a plain red card, literally. Özel called on supporters to show a “red card” to the government. “If you are depressed, have problems, just show it. Show it (to the government), show it in the presence of others so you will find others bearing it too,” he told a puzzled audience at an event.
Özel was also the architect of another CHP stunt, which was derided by its critics in 2024. Copying a similar stunt of pro-CHP circles in the 1990s, he called on people demanding a higher minimum wage and pensions to turn on and turn off their lights at 9 p.m. “You will be seen from space,” he told the public. This protest was short-lived and died down after a few days of CHP supporters dimming their lights.
The CHP has failed to win any election to secure a single-party government for decades and was doomed to fail under the long rule of the late Chair Deniz Baykal. His successor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu garnered the party’s only success against the AK Party: forcing Erdoğan to a runoff vote in the 2023 presidential election. Erdoğan won though, while Kılıçdaroğlu had to step down after the party held an extraordinary election over his failure to defeat the AK Party.