The main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), held a bizarre primary in the name of the democracy it holds dear despite a veiled call to oust the government with rallies. On Sunday, the party’s supporters went to polls across the country to elect Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu as the party’s presidential candidate for a future presidential election.
The mayor, who was formally arrested on Sunday on charges of corruption, was already the sole “candidate” of the election when nobody else showed up to apply for the presidential candidacy, except a former CHP lawmaker who stopped petitioning for candidacy after seeing the party’s administration overwhelmingly favored the mayor.
Not content with one ballot at the party’s branch offices in 81 provinces, the CHP also placed an extra ballot box for non-CHP citizens wishing to vote for Imamoğlu symbolically. The party is riding a wave of popularity after Imamoğlu’s detention and subsequent arrest, which it portrays as politically motivated. Hence, its chair, Özgür Özel, had urged those not eligible to vote to cast their ballots for Imamoğlu even if their political views are different.
The CHP tried the same tactic in the 2023 election against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and united an opposition bloc whose sole motivation was to unseat Erdoğan. Yet, it failed miserably under the helm of Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who decided to run against Erdoğan himself. The same Kılıçdaroğlu, who was promoted as the only hope to beat Erdoğan by the CHP, showed up at one of the party’s polling stations in the capital, Ankara, to cast his vote for Imamoğlu.
“We have to fight for democracy,” Kılıçdaroğlu told reporters after he cast his vote. “You cannot entrust the entire Republic of Türkiye to one person,” Kılıçdaroğlu, who went out of his way for presidential candidacy in the 2023 vote despite being the culprit for a long streak of CHP defeats against the AK Party, said.
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