AKP KEEPS THE CLOCK RUNNING ON OPPOSITION MAYORS THROUGH RAIDS, RULINGS AND DEFECTIONS
Muğla and Manisa mayors denied switching to the AKP as operations against CHP and Yeni Party municipalities continued and courts delivered a string of rulings.
Analysis
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Muğla and Manisa mayors denied switching to the AKP as operations against CHP and Yeni Party municipalities continued and courts delivered a string of rulings.
The Constitutional Court ended discussions about the Yeni Party’s name, but headquarters-backed candidates keep winning in the districts and provinces despite the promises to end the old CHP habit of central control.
The global umbrella of social democratic parties, Socialist International, suspended the CHP under its court-appointed leadership and admitted Özgür Özel's Yeni Party as a full member.
After defeating the AKP in the 2024 local elections, the opposition set its sights on the presidency but the split and rivalry between the CHP and the Yeni Party are now weakening it by the day.
Cemil Tugay has been mayor of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality since 2024. When he resigned from the CHP, he said he would join the new party Özgür Özel was forming. Özel said similar things. But around the same time, reports surfaced that Tugay’s communications with Özel were breaking down.
Yeni Party Chair Özgür Özel defended his decision to shake hands with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP chair reinstated by court order, twice in a week, after facing criticism from his voters.
The CHP Party Assembly has launched disciplinary proceedings against former party officials who have aligned themselves with the breakaway Yeni Party.
A sexual harassment investigation has been launched against CHP deputy Ahmet Baran Yazgan.
The first cooperation between members of the CHP and the People's Alliance took place in Ankara's Etimesgut municipal elections.
Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s jailed mayor, announced his resignation from the CHP and his decision to support the Yeni Party three weeks after its founding.
Erdal Beşikçioğlu, mayor of Etimesgut, a satellite town of the capital, has been arrested. The charge against him is much the same as those leveled at other CHP mayors: 'Forming a criminal organization for the purpose of corruption.'
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was installed as the CHP's party chair by the court's absolute nullity ruling on May 21, addressed the parliamentary group on Aug. 4, more than two months after he was placed in this duty.