A man from Turkey’s conservative elite, who was once one of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s kingmakers, recently received a call from Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition leader, asking for a confidential meeting. This would not be unusual if Turkey were a normal country in which there are also channels for communication between the government and the opposition. In Turkey, however, the rift between the political camps is ravine-deep, and bridging is extremely rare.
Kılıçdaroğlu, 72, has headed the Republican People’s Party, the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), since 2010. At that time Erdoğan had already been in office for seven years, as prime minister, and was still seen by many as a reformer who wanted to lead the country into the EU. For his critics, however, he was a conservative Islamist. The orientation towards western values, on the other hand, is written in the genes of the CHP. The party was created in 1923 by the founder of the republic, Kemal Ataturk, and was supposed to be secular and progressive. The state initially played a major role in their economic concept. The CHP has never completely said goodbye to this. For a long time it also struggled with social pluralism; anti-Kurdish and nationalist sentiments were able to win a majority in it for a long time.
When he won the elections in Istanbul two years ago, he was the kingmaker …
With Kılıçdaroğlu, the tone has gradually changed. The economist is considered to be the architect of an electoral alliance made up of the CHP and a national conservative party, which conquered the Istanbul City Hall in 2019 with open tolerance by the pro-Kurdish, left-wing HDP – after 25 years of conservative rule. It was an unprecedented election because the citizens of the metropolis had to go to the polls twice. The first time, CHP man Ekrem İmamoğlu’s lead was still thin, and Erdoğan did not accept the result. When repeated, the victory of the opposition was so clear that there was nothing left to deny. The CHP also won in 2019 in the capital Ankara as well as in the major cities of Izmir and Antalya.
Since then, it has no longer been considered impossible that she and her partners could defeat Erdoğan in the next parliamentary and presidential elections in 2023, including at the state level. Polls also point in this direction. If people were to be elected now, Erdoğan’s Islamic-conservative AK party and the ultra-nationalist MHP, which he has been using for a while to secure power, would no longer get an absolute majority.
… and for 2023 he will at least choose Erdoğan’s opponent
Since the mood turned against Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu has appeared with significantly greater self-confidence. When he recently visited the Central Bank of Turkey, he warned officials that they should not “be the bureaucrats of the Erdoğan family” and not carry out illegal orders, or that they would have to answer for them later because “we will come to power”. For this, the CHP boss was severely reprimanded by the government: He did not have to threaten officials. Regarding the conflict over ten ambassadors who had campaigned for the patron of culture Osman Kavala, who had been imprisoned for four years, Kılıçdaroğlu said: Erdoğan does not want to “protect national interests”, but only to distract from the severe economic crisis.
It is uncertain whether Kılıçdaroğlu himself will be the CHP’s presidential candidate. Personally, he always appears modest, in a simple gray suit, with a red tie, and rimless glasses. What is certain is that he will choose Erdoğan’s opponent. It will be a man, a woman is not in sight. One of the promising contenders is İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul, 51 years old, before whose election Kılıçdaroğlu played the kingmaker. The conversation with Erdoğan’s former sponsor is said to have lasted several hours, but it is not known whether he gave him hopes for a change of power.