The political thriller that the Turkish authorities launched last Thursday has reached its climax. On Sunday, 24 May, police used water cannons and pepper spray to disperse protesters outside the People’s Republican Party office, tore down fences and forced Özgür Özel to vacate the premises.

Following the end of Eid al-Adha, the party’s former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, will return to the office. He lost his position in November 2023 at the party congress and is now returning following a court ruling. 

On 21 May, the Ankara District Court ruled that the 38th Congress of the Republican People’s Party had been conducted in breach of the law and that all its resolutions were null and void. The court overturned all party decisions made over the past two and a half years, but the main political shock for the country was that, contrary to the law on political parties and an 80-year tradition of a multi-party society, a precedent has now been set in Turkey: the opposition leader can be appointed by the authorities with the help of the courts.

In front of the cameras, Özel tore up the bailiffs’ written notice ordering him to vacate the CHP office, but left the building and set off on foot in the rain towards parliament, accompanied by his colleagues. This turned into an 8-kilometre march, which was joined by thousands of Özel’s supporters. The authorities have already launched an investigation into the unauthorised demonstration.

Outside parliament, Özgür Özel stated that, from now on, the centre of decision-making for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is the office of the CHP parliamentary group leader. Özel took up this post on Saturday, after Kılıçdaroğlu had already gained access to the party’s accounts. 

The CHP faction in the Mejlis comprises 138 MPs. 110 supported the disgraced Özel, whilst 22 retweeted posts by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has regained his status as party leader on his own social media accounts and on state media outlets. 

On the parliamentary website, Özel has ceased to be the party leader and is now listed simply as an MP for the city of Manis. However, the official social media pages of the CHP are in the hands of Kılıçdaroğlu’s opponents. His only chance of dealing with this is to get Turkey’s telecommunications regulator to ban all social media platforms and websites that he does not control. 

Kılıçdaroğlu will get everything: the buildings, the bank accounts, the party’s other assets, and even the state’s administrative resources, which instantly carry out the wishes of the ‘leader’ of the main opposition force. However, only a handful of people have remained with him: all the mayors of major cities from the CHP, most of the heads of regional branches and practically the entire parliamentary faction are on Özel’s side. Kılıçdaroğlu currently has the power to purge the party to suit himself and will do so. However, these efforts may prove futile. 90% of the party is currently ready to follow Özel, and he has already stated: “The CHP has effectively been dissolved; our task is to revive it.” What this means, no one knows for certain. At present, Özel is prepared to compromise with the raiders if a new congress is convened within 40 days.

But Kılıçdaroğlu won’t go along with that. Pro-government journalists, who are 2–3 days ahead of Kılıçdaroğlu’s likely decisions, insist that he won’t step down until the 2028 presidential and parliamentary elections. And it has become clear to everyone: the real opposition is not dealing with a sulking Kılıçdaroğlu, who has returned to his seat as if it were a long-awaited toy, but with the authorities and President Erdoğan himself, without whose intervention such special operations would be impossible.

Consequently, the only viable option for the future is to form a new party. The risk is that they may not manage to register in time to be eligible for the elections. In that case, they will have to join forces with partners who have a parliamentary group and operate under the banner of IYI Parti (The Good Party) for the next two years.

None of the options is ideal, and all of them work in the government’s favour, because even a minor split allows Erdoğan to restore his political influence to its former prominence.