By Barçın Yinanç
The CHP emphasizes moving away from personalized, leader-to-leader foreign policy toward one grounded in formal institutions, rules, transparency, and oversight.
The CHP leadership promises to restore foreign policy decisions to institutional mechanisms but leader-centric foreign policy has gained prominence during the second term of Donald Trump.
In contrast to the past, the Turkish electorate also started looking at how foreign policy is conducted and is more prone to buy the “strong leadership” image.
Yet, if one examines the CHP’s 2025 party program, there is no emphasis on the ‘leader’ as a central actor in the conduct of foreign policy.
This omission is understandable, given that party programs are institutional documents that typically prioritize structures and procedures over individual leadership.
Still, the CHP needs to find other ways to convey the message that its leader, whoever will be its candidate for the presidential elections, has the personal leadership skillset to conduct foreign policy.
PERSONALIZATION VERSUS INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS
A poll conducted by the Reform Institute in 2024 revealed the lack of confidence in the CHP’s ability to conduct foreign policy better than the AKP.
Out of 12 policy areas, a majority said that the AKP would manage four of them better: national security is among these four issues. The CHP received its lowest rating in foreign policy, with 36.8 percent.
This was before Trump was elected. Today, the global uncertainties have further increased the importance of leadership skills in the eyes of some voters in Turkey.
However, when a party builds its central line of critique around opposition to a “one-man regime,” placing strong emphasis on the “leader” in its own foreign policy framework may appear contradictory. Nevertheless, it remains imperative for the CHP to strike a careful balance: avoiding the personalization of foreign policy while still demonstrating credible and visible political leadership.
“Turkey’s predominantly nationalist-conservative electorate will now be looking for strong, if not necessarily authoritarian, leadership that serves national power interests. That puts Turkey’s anti-nationalist liberal opposition and its presidential candidate at a disadvantage,” wrote Halil Karaveli.
In Trump’s world, which is governed by strength and force, nationalism — not liberalism — will resonate with voters, argued Karaveli, a senior fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.
“The CHP’s struggle against autocracy will be impaired if it fails to reassure voters that it will fight for the country’s interests. To stay relevant, the Turkish opposition will be compelled to abandon its faith in the democratic West and embrace Erdoğan’s rhetoric of Turkish strength,” he wrote.
Easier said than done. No doubt the young people in Turkey, whom the CHP counts on luring, are attracted to nationalism. Yet, the dosage must be carefully adjusted to show it is different from the AKP.
The main opposition party’s problem of regaining the confidence of the electorate is not limited to foreign and security policy.
MISSING TRUST
According to Metropoll’s Turkey’s Pulse survey of opinion in January 2026, 37.4% of respondents believe that the opposition is ready to govern the country, while 60.8% think that it is not yet.
“We are confronted with a landscape in which society has almost reached a consensus that the current order is unsustainable, yet at the same time consciously refrains from placing its trust in any actor that might replace it. This is not mere indecision; rather, it reflects a state of deliberate and entrenched distrust,” wrote Özgör Bayram Soylu in pro-government Yeni Şafak.
“This government is not working — but I also do not see a credible alternative to replace it,” says the voter, according to Soylu.
“This is precisely where the current deadlock in Turkish politics lies. The distance between the demand for change and the feeling of trust is no longer merely a gap; it has widened into something closer to a canyon. Voters desire change, yet they fear that such change may be uncontrolled, uncertain, and fraught with risk,” Soylu wrote.
The sad truth is that the CHP has no time or space to spend on soul-searching over how to regain confidence from the electorate. As of next week, with two crucial cases, one about the CHP congress, the other one about the Istanbul congress, it will yet again enter survival mode. Trying to keep its head above water prevents the party from designing better strategies. And this is exactly what the country’s ruling coalition wants. And the new appointments for justice and interior ministries will certainly serve this purpose.
