Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi--CHP)
The Republican People's Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi or CHP) is the oldest political party in the Republic of Turkey. The party was established during the Congress of Sivas as a union of resistance groups against the invasion of Anatolia. The union represented the Turkish people as a unified front during the Turkish War of Independence. On September 9, 1923 People's Party officially declared itself as a political organization and on October 29, 1923 announced the Republican regime by this distancing itself, also Turkey, from non-partisan democracy. On 10 November 1924 the People's Party renamed itself "Republican People's Party" (CHP) as the Turkey was moving into Single-Party period.
Throughout his presidency, repeatedly extended by the assembly, Atatürk governed Turkey essentially by personal rule in a one-party state. He founded the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi--CHP) in 1923 to represent the nationalist movement in elections and to serve as a vanguard party in support of the Kemalist reform program. Atatürk's Six Arrows were an integral part of the CHP's political platform. By controlling the CHP, Atatürk also controlled the assembly and assured support there for the government he had appointed. Atatürk regarded a stage of personal authoritarian rule as necessary to secure his reforms before he entrusted the government of the country to the democratic process.
Prior to 1950, the Republic of Turkey was essentially a one-party state ruled by the Republican People's Party, which had been created by Atatürk to implement the Six Arrows of Kemalism. Although there had been abortive experiments with "loyal opposition" parties in the mid-1920s and in 1930, it was not until 1946 that the CHP permitted political parties to form and contest elections, albeit in a politically controlled environment. The Democrat Party was founded in 1946 by CHP members who were dissatisfied with the authoritarian style of the CHP but who otherwise supported the party's Kemalist principles. The DP emphasized the need to end various restrictions on personal freedom so that Turkey could become a democracy. Reform of laws governing political parties and electoral activities--measures that would enable the DP to compete on an equal basis with the CHP--were enacted prior to the 1950 parliamentary elections. Consequently, those elections were the first free ones since the founding of the republic in 1923. The DP won a large majority of seats in the assembly and thus took over the government from the CHP.
The DP retained control of the government throughout the 1950s, a period during which it enacted legislation that restricted news media freedom and various civil liberties. As the DP steadily became less tolerant of dissent, the CHP gradually moved in the opposite direction, abandoning its authoritarian stance and becoming an advocate of civil rights. The DP's efforts to suppress opposition to its policies provoked a political crisis that culminated in a May 1960 military coup. The DP subsequently was dissolved, but the Justice Party, which was established in 1961, was widely perceived as its successor and attracted most of its supporters. In the 1961 parliamentary elections that led to the restoration of civilian government, the Justice Party won the second largest number of seats and thus established itself as the principal competitor of the CHP, which had won a plurality of seats.
In the subsequent nineteen years, the rivalry between the Justice Party and the CHP remained a significant feature of Turkish politics. Although both parties proclaimed their loyalty to Kemalist ideals, they evolved distinct ideological positions. Süleyman Demirel, who became leader of the Justice Party in 1964, favored economic policies that benefited private entrepreneurs and industrialists. In contrast, Bülent Ecevit, who became leader of the CHP in 1965, believed in a form of democratic socialism that included government intervention aimed at regulating private business and protecting workers and consumers. The views of these two men and the positions of their respective parties became increasingly polarized after 1972.
Headed by Bülent Ecevit in the 1970s, it was one of the major parties prior to the 1980 coup. The inability of either the Justice Party or the CHP to win parliamentary majorities and the refusal of both Demirel and Ecevit to cooperate politically necessitated the formation of numerous coalition and minority-party governments. These governments proved ineffective at devising policies to cope with Turkey's economic and social problems, which became steadily more serious throughout the 1970s. Various groups on the extreme right and the extreme left formed illegal political organizations that resorted to violence in pursuit of their objectives, which for certain groups included the overthrow of the government.
The apparent inability of governments--whether dominated by the Justice Party or by the CHP--to control increasing terrorism in urban areas contributed to a general sense of insecurity and crisis and served as the catalyst for the 1980 coup. Blaming politicians for the country's political impasse, the military sought to end partisan politics by dissolving the old parties and banning all activity by the politicians deemed responsible for the crisis. Although the formation of new parties was authorized in 1983, none was allowed to use the name of any of the banned parties from the precoup past. Nevertheless, most of Turkey's existing parties in early 1995 were transparent continuations of earlier parties.
A majority of its deputies ultimately regrouped in the left-of-center Socialist Democratic Populist Party (SHP). The party was reactivated by Deniz Baykal in 1992. In 1995 when the SHP dissolved itself, many members joined the CHP.
In March 2009 local elections Ankara and Istanbul witnessed a cutthroat competition between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). The ruling AKP's Melih Gökçek won in Ankara and Kadir Topbas in Istanbul. Izmir's mayor from CHP Aziz Kocaoglu also remained in his seat.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu led the party since 2010, and ever since, the CHP failed to win a single national election although it scored significant victories in local elections in 2019, taking a handful of major cities — including Ankara and Istanbul.
The Nation Alliance, led by the main opposition CHP and the right-wing Iyi Party, covered a wide spectrum of parties, including the liberal-right Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party and the centre-right Gelecek Party, which are led by two former Erdogan allies, ex-Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and ex-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The alliance also includes the smaller ultra-conservative Saadet Party and the right-wing Democrat Party. Kilicdaroglu stated that he wants to talk to all international actors and fix the country’s relations with the West. Kilicdaroglu said Turks will be able to travel to the European Union’s Schengen area without a visa within months of him coming to power.
Their candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the alliance’s campaign promised change after more than 20 years of AK Party rule. They pledge to uphold democracy, media freedom and the rule of law. The Nation Alliance used a rhetoric of “change” in almost all policy areas to attract people who are not happy with the current situation in Turkey. The Nation Alliance also seeks to abolish the executive presidential system introduced by Erdogan through a referendum in 2017 and bring back a strong parliamentary system to govern Turkey.
Dissent spread among members of the CHP after the party failed to capitalize on dire economic circumstances in Turkey and the fallout from February’s earthquakes to oust Erdogan in parliamentary and presidential elections in May. The opposition, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance, had seen the country’s worst economic crisis in two decades and the fallout over catastrophic earthquakes in February as near-insurmountable obstacles to Erdogan’s re-election. At the time, pre-election polls had predicted a strong showing for the CHP's former leader Kilicdaroglu in what many saw as the opposition’s greatest chance to unseat Erdogan since he took office in 2003.
But Erdogan secured his third presidential term in a run-off vote. The opposition might view Kilicdaroglu’s 47.8 percent share of the vote in Sunday’s second-round presidential race against Erdogan as a success of sorts. In Turkey’s two previous direct presidential elections, Erdogan’s challengers had failed to break through the 40 percent barrier. “Nobody should attempt to create a success story from these results,” former CHP General Secretary Mehmet Akif Hamzacebi said. “There is a complete failure in terms of our chairman and party.”
A call for change at the top of the CHP was led by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, one of the party’s most prominent figures and an outspoken critic of the way the party ran May 2023 election campaign. Others also complained that the secularist CHP — established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — had become undemocratic, with too much power in the leader’s hands.
Since winning Turkey’s largest city for the party, Imamoglu has become a household figure and played a significant role in the campaign, as did his Ankara counterpart Mansur Yavas.Both men had been discussed as possible presidential candidates.
Ozgur Ozel replaced Kilicdaroglu after delegates of the Republican People’s Party, or the CHP, elected him as new leader 05 November 2023. Ozel, 49, is a former pharmacist who was elected to parliament in 2011. He will lead the party in local elections in March in a bid to hold onto the cities it took five years earlier. The results in a second round of voting — held in a sports hall in Ankara — saw Ozel take 812 of 1,366 delegate votes to become the CHP’s 8th leader. Speaking from the stage in front of thousands of flag-waving CHP members, Ozel — his voice hoarse with excitement — promised the cheering crowd a brighter political future and “to make people smile.”
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