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A Turkish court has annulled the 2023 congress that made Özgür Özel chairman of the Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s main opposition force, throwing the party into a leadership crisis and rattling financial markets. The Ankara ruling restores the party’s previous administration, including former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and can be appealed, according to CHP deputy chair Gül Çiftçi. Reports also indicated that the court decision opens the way for Kılıçdaroğlu’s return.
Markets Punish Political Shock
The market reaction was swift. The Borsa Istanbul 100 index fell yüzde 6,1, triggering a market-wide circuit breaker, while Turkey’s five-year credit-default swaps rose 13 basis points to 254 basis points. The lira held near 45.61 per dollar in early evening Istanbul trading. The selloff shows how quickly investors connect judicial pressure on the opposition with broader concerns about policy stability and institutional risk.
The case centers on the CHP’s November 2023 congress, when Özel defeated Kılıçdaroğlu and began reshaping the party after years of opposition frustration. The ruling does more than remove one chairman: it threatens decisions taken since that congress and could reopen internal divisions between the old guard and the party’s newer municipal power base. That matters because the CHP had become more competitive after its 2024 local-election gains.
Imamoğlu and Yavaş Face Pressure
The decision lands while some of the CHP’s most visible figures are already under legal pressure. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, widely viewed as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest potential challenger, is in jail, while Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş has faced a probe over alleged misuse of public resources. Opposition figures say the cases are political; the government says courts act independently. The court fight could slow CHP efforts to organize around either figure before 2028.
The pressure is not confined to Istanbul or Ankara. Authorities have detained the mayor of Bursa, Turkey’s fourth-largest city, on corruption allegations, adding another front in the legal campaign surrounding CHP-run municipalities. Earlier, a court removed the CHP’s Istanbul provincial leadership and installed Gürsel Tekin, a former Istanbul party chief aligned with Kılıçdaroğlu, as trustee.
Reports indicated that the Istanbul branch ruling had already unnerved markets months before the national congress decision. The ruling could help Erdoğan by weakening the only opposition party with a national machine strong enough to contest the presidency. But the outcome is not settled: the CHP can appeal, markets may reassess after the legal path becomes clearer, and a forced Kılıçdaroğlu return could deepen rather than resolve party tensions.
The immediate risk is that Turkey’s opposition enters the 2028 cycle focused on its own survival instead of a single candidate.
