The Turkish Republican People’s Party elected new leader replacing Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), Türkiye’s main opposition party, elected on Sunday its new leader, the relatively unknown figure, Özgür Özel, replacing its leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The Republican People’s Party has witnessed a division since Kilicdaroglu’s loss in May in the second round of the presidential elections to Erdogan.
Kılıçdaroğlu had sparked discontent within his party by refusing to acknowledge defeat and resign after his failure in the presidential elections.
During the party’s annual conference, delegates voted in favor of replacing Kılıçdaroğlu with CHP Member of the National Assembly, Özgür Özel, who is a pharmacist and doesn’t extensive political experience.
Özel was supported by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, after wasting what many consider the opposition’s best opportunity to end two decades of President Erdogan’s rule.
The Turkish presidential elections that took place last May amid a severe crisis, particularly the rise in the cost of living, which analysts blamed on Erdogan’s economic policies.
Kılıçdaroğlu was able to form a multi-party coalition composed of right-wing nationalists, left-wing socialists, and Kurds, but the six-party bloc almost disintegrated a few months before the elections, and it also performed poorly in opinion polls.
After two tense voting rounds at the party conference, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (74) lost his leadership position to candidate Özgür Özel (49) who is supported by reform advocates in the party, led by the mayor of Istanbul.
Özgür Özel spent most of his career working as a pharmacist in the tourist city of Izmir (west), a stronghold of opposition to Erdogan.
He later became president of the Pharmacists Association of Türkiye, and was elected as a member of Member of the National Assembly in 2011.
Özel won the final vote of the party conference by obtaining a majority of 812 votes compared to 536, after presenting himself as the candidate for change, however, the vote focused more on the personalities of the two men than on specific policies.
Kılıçdaroğlu considered attempts to overthrow him a stab in the back, while Özel affirmed his desire to write a chapter and reshape Turkish politics,” calling for reforms in the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the oldest in Türkiye.
The CHP aims to defend the important municipal centers it controls in Istanbul and Ankara in the municipal elections scheduled for early next year.
Özel is fluent in English and German, previously served as vice-president of the CHP’s parliamentary bloc.
He’s originally from Manisa Governorate in the west of the country; married and has a daughter.
