Turkey’s opposition head accuses Erdoğan of legal ‘coup’ (Financial Times)

Özgür Özel says CHP will use ‘cunning’ ploys and protests to fight offlawsuits that could gut the party’s leadership

Financial Times

John Paul Rathbone in Ankara

Turkey’s largest opposition party will launch lawsuits and mass protests that bring “life to a standstill” if the government pushes ahead with a legal “coup” against its leadership, its most senior figure said.

Özgür Özel, chair of the Republican People’s party (CHP), told the Financial Times that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was trying to create a Russian-style one party system in Turkey, and that the CHP was the “last obstacle” standing in his way.

Özel was speaking after a bombshell retroactive ruling by a Turkish lower court this week said thatthe 2023 appointment of the CHP’s Istanbul provincial head was invalid — a landmark decisionthat could curtail any effective future challenge to Erdoğan’s more than two decade rule.

The government “staged a coup against the future ruling party”, Özel said in an interview.

“They are trying to take over the party that won the last election, was the founding party of theTurkish republic, is the party leading every poll . . . We’re facing an authoritarian governmentand . . . the only option is to resist,” he said. “If the CHP goes, Turkey will go too.”

Turkish financial assets slumped immediately after this week’s ruling, which set a precedent for amore consequential case on September 15, which could lead to Özel and other senior CHP officialsbeing replaced with government-friendly appointees — in effect, neutering the government’sbiggest rival.

In both cases, the CHP has been accused of alleged “irregularities”, such as cash payments, thatinfluenced the selection of senior party officials at internal CHP conventions, including the 2023congress that elected Özel. The CHP vociferously denies the allegations.

Speaking at his party’s headquarters in Ankara, Özel said he believed Turkey’s lower courts did nothave the legal authority to rule on electoral matters — which are the jurisdiction of higher courts —and that the CHP would not recognise such decisions. But, he added, if “Erdoğan is playing a dirtygame, we can also play . . . that game and respond to him with similar cunning”.

One possibility, which the CHP was considering, is to launch cases that challenge the validity of allpast elections — including those that Erdoğan has won, such as the 2017 referendum thatestablished Turkey’s presidential system and expanded Erdoğan’s powers.

Turkey’s electoral council had controversially ruled during the tight vote that it would countunstamped ballots as valid unless they were proven fraudulent. Council of Europe electionobservers subsequently criticised the move.

“It must be acknowledged that not all judges in Turkey are under . . . Erdoğan’s control,” Özel said.However, this course of action was “risky”, he added, as it would further undermine the rule of lawin Turkey, and while “Erdoğan is lawless, the CHP is law abiding”.

The government insists that Turkey’s courts are independent, but the CHP — established over acentury ago by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the republic — says this and other cases againstit are politically motivated.

Özel said the party had various other plans on how to respond to the crackdown, including“peaceful but highly effective civil disobedience actions . . . that will bring life to a standstill” inTurkey.

He has suggested crowds “not of millions but tens of millions” could gather, but declined to givedetails. “I do not want him [Erdoğan] to prepare . . . He is trying to predict what our reaction willbe,” Özel said.

The ins and outs of the legal battling are complex and contentious. But they come as polls showthat the CHP would beat Erdoğan’s governing Justice and Development party were an election heldtoday.

The arrest on corruption charges of Istanbul mayor and CHP presidential candidate Ekremİmamoğlu in March sparked a financial panic and Turkey’s biggest protests in more than a decade.

In addition to Istanbul — which accounts for a third of Turkey’s GDP — several other large citieshave also recently shifted to CHP control.

At last year’s local elections, the CHP won nearly 38 per cent of the votes, becoming the country’sleading party in terms of vote share.

“Erdoğan knows that he can’t win elections anymore. That is why he wants [weak] oppositionparties, like in Russia,” Özel said.