(Istanbul) – A court decision ordering the removal of the party chair and leadership of Türkiye’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is the latest deeply damaging blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights in Türkiye, Human Rights Watch said today.
On May 21, 2026, the 36th Ankara regional court of appeal issued an interim measure to remove the CHP chair, Özgür Özel, and the entire party leadership and annul the November 4-5, 2023, party congress at which party delegates elected them. The court restored the previous party leadership of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the May 2023 presidential election to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and had been replaced by Özel at the party congress.
“The court’s decision to remove Özgür Özel and the entire CHP leadership is part of the Erdoğan government’s broader political efforts to sideline the main political opposition in ways that profoundly undermine civil and political rights and Türkiye’s democratic process,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “After the government jailed the Istanbul mayor and CHP presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, and other CHP mayors and officials on bogus charges, it is clear that the Turkish authorities want to remove the current leadership of the CHP as a viable force in politics.”
The court decision to annul the party congress is a highly unusual interference in a political party’s internal party election and chosen leadership. Illegitimate efforts to interfere with the functioning of a political party or to effect its closure or the ability of elected leaders to operate as political candidates, constitute at a minimum a violation of the rights to freedom of association (article 11) and to free and fair elections (article 3, protocol 1) under the European Convention on Human Rights. Türkiye has a poor record of unlawful closure of and interference with political parties and the ongoing abusive tactics by the Erdoğan government to remove the CHP as a political force give rise to violations that go to the heart of a democratic society based on human rights and rule of law.
A review of the timeline of the leadership case demonstrates a clear political motivation on the part of Türkiye’s president in securing Özel’s removal, Human Rights Watch said. In the March 2024 local elections, under his leadership, the CHP received 37.8 percent of the vote nationally, surpassing the 35.5 percent for President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which lost its lead for the first time in 22 years.
In October 2024, President Erdoğan made the first of several speeches suggesting that Özel had been elected party leader at the 2023 CHP congress in a dubious manner. In February 2025, the Ankara public prosecutor’s office announced an investigation into complaints about the 2023 congress. The complaints came from a few former and current CHP members opposed to Özel’s leadership who alleged, but provided no concrete evidence, that Özel and others had been elected through a fraudulent process entailing buying votes. The CHP leadership rejects the allegations.
In October 2025, after several hearings, the Ankara administrative court hearing the case dismissed it on the basis that Özel had also been elected leader in two further congresses in 2025. The decision prompted the complainants to appeal to the Ankara regional court, which, on May 21, upheld their complaint and nullified the 2023 congress, and also invalidated the subsequent congresses at which the Özel leadership was re-elected, without citing any evidence to justify its decision.
A separate ongoing criminal case in the Ankara 26th Criminal Court of First Instance is reviewing claims that İmamoğlu and 11 others paid delegates to vote for Özel at the congress. The indictment is based on vague assertions without demonstrable evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Following the court’s decision, Özel and the party leadership convened at the Ankara party headquarters, and in a news conference and an address to supporters gathered outside the party building, Özel stated that he would not leave the party building and accused the courts of staging a coup against the opposition.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek described the court’s decision as “consolidating our citizens’ trust in democracy.” Gürlek was the Istanbul chief public prosecutor in October 2024 when investigations against the CHP started there. On February 10, 2026, after the completion of the investigations into İmamoğlu, Gürlek was appointed justice minister.
On May 22, in his role as court-appointed party leader, Kılıçdaroğlu’s first action was to fire the three CHP lawyers responsible for lodging the party’s appeal to the Court of Cassation against the removal of the Özgür Özel leadership and to appoint new ones who immediately applied to withdraw that appeal.
