Turkish court ousts leader of main opposition party

A court in Turkiye has annulled the 2023 leadership election of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in a sharp escalation against the country’s embattled opposition.

It is the latest in a string of moves targeting the CHP, Turkiye’s oldest political faction that won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in the 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls.

The ruling on Thursday overturned the result of a leadership election that brought in current party head Ozgur Ozel, with the court naming the party’s former chair, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – who lost the election to Ozel – as interim leader.

The case was seen as a test of Turkiye’s shaky balance between democracy and increasingly centralised power, and the ruling may throw the opposition into further disarray and possible infighting. It could also boost Erdogan’s chances of extending his more than two-decade rule of the big NATO member country and major emerging market economy.

The CHP rejected the ruling as an “attempted coup”, while the government – which denies criticism that it uses courts to target political opponents – said it renewed Turks’ faith in the rule of law.

The secular and centrist CHP, running roughly even with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted and conservative ruling AK Party in polls, has also faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024, in which hundreds of its members and elected officials have been detained as part of corruption charges that the party denies.

Among those imprisoned for more than a year is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is Erdogan’s main rival and the CHP’s official candidate for a presidential election set for 2028, but that could come next year.

Ozel, the CHP’s combative chair, who has risen to prominence since Imamoglu’s arrest, convened party leaders to discuss a response to the court ruling while protests were planned.

Ali Mahir Basarir, CHP deputy parliamentary group chair, told the Reuters news agency the ruling “is an attempted coup carried out through the judiciary [and] a blow against the will of 86 million people”. Those behind it “will be held accountable before the courts”, he said.

Turkiye’s Borsa Istanbul .XU100 dropped 6 percent in response, triggering a market-wide circuit breaker, while government bonds slid.

The central bank sold billions of dollars in forex to ease the fallout, four traders said.

In March last year, Imamoglu’s detention prompted a selloff that sent inflation expectations higher and temporarily reversed a rate-cutting cycle. Investors said the latest political turmoil would be watched for similar risks.

The ruling by the Ankara court overturned a decision last year by a court of first instance that said the case surrounding the CHP’s 2023 congress had no substance.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party (Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party), parliament’s third-largest, called the court decision a “black stain” on Turkish democracy.