Ozgur Ozel has been re-elected as leader of Turkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) during an extraordinary convention in the capital, Ankara.
Ozel repeated on Sunday that he will keep fighting to free jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and other mayors charged with engaging in corruption, aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and leading a criminal organisation.
He also called for the presidential election scheduled for 2028 to be brought forward to take place “at the latest in November” this year, which he said will see Imamoglu as the CHP’s presidential candidate.
Convention date moved up
More than 1,300 CHP delegates gathered for the convention to elect the party’s main executive bodies and chairperson.
Ozel, the only contender for the chairperson’s position, was backed by the votes of 1,171 delegates and kept his seat.
Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Ankara, said the convention was originally scheduled for November.
She said the party in normal circumstances holds such conventions every two years, adding that it was moved up to Sunday to prevent an alleged attempt to appoint a trustee to the party as prosecutors investigate allegations over irregularities.
“The party took an imminent decision to hold this congress,” our correspondent said.
“Given the unrest after Imamoglu’s arrest, there has been a huge support for the opposition … from many segments of the society,” she said, adding that the party is making an effort to win over voters in all parts of the nation.
‘Protests will continue’
In his address, Ozel hailed the demonstrations triggered by last month’s arrest of Imamoglu, who is widely considered President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s greatest political threat, as “the greatest motion of censure in history”.
He called on all CHP members, its delegates and other executives to stay united and continue the political struggle in all possible venues.
“We will continue our rallies and protests in the coming days,” he said. “Every weekend we will be in a provincial city, and every Wednesday we will hold night rallies in one of Istanbul’s districts. We are starting from Samsun next week.”
In the days after Imamoglu’s arrest, the CHP drew tens of thousands of protesters in Istanbul and many other cities to denounce the government’s move.
Erdogan has denied that the charges against Imamoglu are politically motivated. He has previously accused Imamoglu of being a pawn of foreign interests.
The president has called the current wave of protests “a movement of violence” and accused CHP leaders of “shielding those who attack police with stones and axes”, pointing to more than 100 police officers injured so far in the rallies.
In response, Turkiye has clamped down on the protests. Authorities have detained nearly 2,000 people.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc has defended the independence of the judiciary against accusations of political bias, saying Erdogan did not influence Imamoglu’s arrest.
