CHP rallies in Ankara ahead of key court ruling on 2023 convention

ANKARA

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) staged a large rally in the capital Ankara on Sept. 14, a day before a court hearing that could challenge the legitimacy of its 2023 party convention.

The rally, held in Tandoğan Square under the slogan “Not tutelage, but politics, no trustees and coups," drew heavy turnout from Ankara and nearby provinces.

"We will not surrender to the last gasps of an obsolete government that cannot go out into the streets, go to the markets or enter the fields," CHP leader Özgür Özel wrote on X before the event.

Authorities closed several roads around the rally area, and CHP officials met with citizens in the lead-up to the gathering as part of outreach activities.

On Sept.15, an Ankara court is scheduled to hear a case seeking to annul the party’s most convention in November 2023. In preparation, the CHP announced it will hold an extraordinary convention on Sept. 21 if the ruling results in what reports describe as "absolute nullity."

According to an application signed by Özel and submitted to a district election board in Ankara, over 900 delegates endorsed the move. The Sept. 21 meeting would mark the party’s second extraordinary convention in five months, aimed at preventing the possible appointment of a trustee.

A ruling against the CHP could potentially pave the way for the return of former party chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to the leadership.

The decision to hold an extraordinary convention earlier this year came right after the detention of CHP's Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 19, with Özel re-elected as chair at the April 6 session.

The legal saga also follows weeks of turbulence within the party’s Istanbul branch. Interim provincial chair Gürsel Tekin’s arrival on Sept. 8 sparked protests from officials and supporters, after the previous leadership was suspended over alleged irregularities in a 2023 congress.

The CHP later announced that its Istanbul provincial headquarters would instead serve as Özel’s "work office," and scheduled an extraordinary provincial congress for Sept. 24.

Later, a court on Sept. 11 rejected a bid to annul the Istanbul congress on procedural grounds.