The leadership of Türkiye's main opposition party, reinstated by a court ruling in May, has removed 26 of the party's provincial chairs in a single day.
The Republican People's Party (CHP) executive board, meeting under Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, dismissed the 26 chairs, referred seven of them to the disciplinary board with a demand for expulsion, and appointed new chairs in six provinces. The party spokesman, Müslim Sarı, announced the decisions after Tuesday's meeting.
To read the move you have to go back to May. On 21 May 2026, the 36th Civil Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Justice annulled the CHP's 38th ordinary congress, the November 2023 gathering at which Özgür Özel was elected leader, on the ground of mutlak butlan, or absolute nullity, and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu and the pre-congress party organs as an interim measure. The Supreme Election Council rejected the party's objection the next day. As our report on the ruling set out, the annulment suits came not from the government but from CHP delegates and veteran members, who alleged that votes at the congress had been bought with cash and gifts; the court leaned largely on their testimony and on a parallel criminal case, with little forensic evidence made public.
That ruling is the fault line running through everything since. Kılıçdaroğlu's side treats itself as the party's lawful leadership and is now acting the part, clearing out provincial organizations loyal to Özel. Özel's camp calls the ruling judicial overreach, ties it to the same prosecutions that reached İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, and points to the March 2024 local elections, when the CHP finished first nationwide under Özel, as its real mandate. The legal fight is not over.
The seven chairs sent toward expulsion are those of Denizli, Muğla, Eskişehir, Sinop, Kars, Mardin and Tunceli. The step follows earlier expulsion demands against figures including Ali Mahir Başarır, Gökhan Günaydın and Veli Ağbaba.
What the decisions amount to on the ground is harder to read than the announcement suggests. With two rival administrations each claiming to be the real CHP, whether a dismissal handed down by one is honored in the provinces is itself disputed. The direction is clear even if the effect is not. The struggle at the top of the CHP has reached down into its local ranks, and the courts are not finished with it.