ANKARA: The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party survived a challenge to his leadership yesterday, despite the party’s failure to defeat Recep Tayyip Erdogan in last month’s presidential elections.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) voted at an extraordinary congress to keep Kemal Kilicdaroglu as leader in favour of his challenger Muharrem Ince, the former deputy chairman of the party’s parliamentary group.
Kilicdaroglu won 740 votes from congress delegates, easily beating Ince, who won 415. Although Kilicdaroglu did not himself stand in the presidential election, he was vilified by many in the party for choosing Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a bookish former head of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to challenge Erdogan in the August 10 polls.
The choice was highly controversial because Ihsanoglu is not a CHP member and, like the Turkish leader, is deeply pious, and critics said his campaign had failed to inspire staunchly secular voters.
Erdogan won the poll with almost 52 percent of the vote, meaning there was no need for a second round run-off, a win so decisive it plunged the CHP into a period of soul-searching.
The party, which proudly traces its history back to Turkey’s modern founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has lost direction in recent years with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) romping to seven election and two referenda wins in just over a decade.
But speaking at the congress, Kilicdaroglu rejected criticism that his party was distancing itself from its leftist principles. “They said the CHP has leaned toward the right, betrayed Ataturk and become old-fashioned. But the CHP is a modern party, it is a party of courage,” he said.
“We respect all identities. Respecting... identities and beliefs does not mean leaning toward the right wing,” he said.
While the CHP still counts on a bedrock of support in coastal regions it has failed to mobilise voters on the left who want to see peace with the Kurds, gender equality and social rights.
AFP
