Turkey’s Main Opposition Party Split into Two after Internal Crisis

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, split into two camps on Wednesday following an internal crisis over the implementation of new party bylaws as requested by the country’s top prosecutor.

The recent intra-party unease over the new party bylaws, which have yet to go into effect, has developed into chaos after Secretary-General Onder Sav challenged CHP chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu and started gathering signatures for an extraordinary party convention, or congress, in order to dethrone him.

Sav’s defiance shows that the main opposition party has a major split between the supporters of Sav and Kilicdaroglu.

On Wednesday, Sav started to gather signatures from party delegates for an extraordinary congress after he failed to reach a compromise with Kilicdaroglu over the new bylaws. CHP Deputy Chairman Hakki Suha Okay called a press conference in the afternoon and declared that the CHP Party Council decided to hold a congress on Nov. 27 or 28.

The council was expected to convene under the leadership of Kilicdaroglu in an attempt to put an end to the days-long deadlock over the implementation of the bylaws. At the council meeting, the CHP leader was expected to appoint 13 new deputy chairmen and a secretary-general in order to put the bylaws into effect. However, he did not participate in the meeting, arguing that Sav would oppose the names he would appoint and attempt to have his “own men” appointed to the posts instead.

Despite Kilicdaroglu’s protest, the party council convened with the participation of 56 –out of 81 in total — members. The CHP leader’s refusal to attend the meeting annoyed Sav, who in response ordered his close circle of friends to start gathering signatures from party delegates for an extraordinary congress.

Speaking at a press conference, Sav said that Kilicdaroglu “committed a disciplinary crime by not attending the council’s meeting.”

After Sav and Okay’s statements CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu held a press conference and underlined that “party council without him can not decide”. He said that after the order by the Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, they put the party’s new bylaws into practice and declared the names of the new secretary general and deputy chairmen to him.

“We will break the empires of fear” he said. He appointed Suheyl Batum as new secretary general of the party and 13 new deputy chairmen, keeping Sav out of his list of appointees and widening the internal rift in the party.

Speaking at another press conference, Sav claimed that the party council was still valid.

A convention may spell the end of the Kilicdaroglu era in the CHP because Sav has the required support of party delegates to dethrone the leader. The powerful secretary-general is reportedly planning to have either himself or Faik Öztrak, the CHP’s main accountant, elected as the new CHP leader at the convention.

For over one week, the CHP has been going through tough times due to an order by the Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya to put the party’s new bylaws into practice within two weeks. The new bylaws were approved at a CHP congress in 2008, but have been suspended since then. They are mainly intended to significantly reduce the role of Secretary-General Onder Sav in the administration of the party.

The main opposition party is dragging its feet in enforcing its new bylaws because Sav does not want his authority to be curbed.

After top prosecutor’s warning, however, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu found himself forced into a corner to put the new bylaws into effect. He called a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK) to discuss the issue. However, he faced strong resistance from Sav, who reportedly said he would call for an extraordinary congress if the CHP administration insisted on implementing the new bylaws.

Kilicdaroglu and Sav had a tête-à-tête meeting on Tuesday and sought to end the intra-party conflict.

After the meeting, the CHP released a statement and said there was no extraordinary congress looming on the horizon for the main opposition party. According to the statement, the new bylaws would be put into effect, and then be replaced by new and more democratic ones after the 2011 general elections.

Sav was the mastermind of Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy for the CHP leadership after former party leader Deniz Baykal resigned in May. Baykal resigned from the party leadership after a video clip that showed him in an affair with a female party deputy hit news websites. There are rumors that he wants to return to the CHP as the chairman, but he lacks the required support because Secretary-General Sav has immense influence over CHP delegates.

The powerful secretary-general, who was the only member of CHP’s Central Executive Board (MYK) to initially back Kilicdaroglu’s bid, managed to convince all MYK members who initially had invited Kilicdaroglu to withdraw and reiterated their allegiance to Baykal to instead back Kilicdaroglu, who then became the new CHP leader with an almost unanimous vote in the May congress. However, this move put Sav at odds with Baykal and CHP members close to him. Some members of the party who opposed Sav’s moves concerning Kilicdaroglu have constantly expressed unease with the secretary-general and made critical statements about the new administration.

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