CHP to expel members who provoke quarrels within party

Nergis Demirkaya

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) executives have said that party members who initiate a quarrel with fellow members will be expelled from the party in a bid not to damage the party reputation.

The CHP has adopted this stance in the aftermath of a recent crisis that emerged over claims that a senior party member had secretly met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to the CHP, these claims were part of an operation that targeted the party chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. This so-called “plot” aimed to create a perception that “the CHP is not being managed well,” said the CHP executives.

Accordingly, Kılıçdaroğlu instructed every party member “not to initiate any quarrel” with each other and not to disturb the “inclusive structure” of the party, or otherwise they will be expelled, the CHP executives told Gazete Duvar.

On Nov. 19, a columnist for daily Sözcü, Rahmi Turan, claimed that a senior CHP member held a secret meeting with Erdoğan and the president offered his help to this politician to assume the leadership of the CHP. Erdoğan denied these rumors, whereas Kılıçdaroğlu said such a secret would not come to him as a surprise as he said he believed Erdoğan wanted to meddle in the internal affairs of the CHP.

The columnist Turan eventually said that the person who had secretly met with Erdoğan was Muharrem İnce, the CHP’s candidate in the presidential race in 2018. İnce denied these claims and criticized Kılıçdaroğlu for not discrediting these allegations. İnce also said this was a plot orchestrated against him by his enemies in the party.

On Nov. 25, the CHP held a Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting at the party’s headquarters in Ankara. CHP spokesperson Faik Öztrak later held a press meeting, saying the claims emanated from the government in an attempt to damage the CHP and chairman Kılıçdaroğlu.

According to the information received from the CHP MYK members, the party spokesperson will as of now address any accusations targeting the party, and if the accusation targets any specific CHP member, the relevant party member will personally give an account for that.

The CHP executives also told Gazete Duvar that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had schemed such a plot in order to “cover up their own intra-party problems” and change the country's real agenda.

“The chairman [Kılıçdaroğlu] has very well expressed it. This is an example of political engineering. There are people [within the AKP] who have been assigned for this: to push the party [CHP] into an environment of quarrel, to create the illusion that the CHP suffers from intra-party fights, to have [the nation] forget the problems it is in and to disintegrate the alliance,” said a CHP MYK, referring to the Nation Alliance that the CHP has formed with other opposition parties to contest the previous elections.