An Ankara court on Thursday annulled the 2023 leadership election of Turkey's main opposition CHP party in a sharp escalation against the country's embattled opposition.
It is the latest in a string of moves targeting the Republican People's Party, Turkey's oldest political faction that won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP in the 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls.
The ruling overturned the result of a leadership election that brought in current party head Ozgur Ozel, with the court naming the party's former chair, Kemal Kilicdaroglu -- who lost the election to Ozel -- as interim leader.
The CHP immediately called an emergency leadership meeting at its Ankara headquarters, where hundreds of angry demonstrators began gathering outside, the crowd swelling to more than 5,000 people, an AFP correspondent said.
"Traitor Kemal!" they yelled, waving flags and chanting angry slogans over a court decision which prompted a sharp reaction on Turkey's main stock exchange, which tumbled more than six percent.
The case concerns allegations of vote buying at CHP's November 2023 congress, with prosecutors alleging Ozel won by putting pressure on delegates with promises of jobs and other kickbacks.
Opened in February 2025, the case was thrown out in October on grounds it had no substance. But prosecutors appealed and the court found in their favour.
"We do not recognise or accept this unlawful (court) decision," CHP wrote on X, as Ozel vowed to continue the struggle.
“We are experiencing a dark day for Turkish democracy," Ozel told a late-night news conference in Ankara, saying the party had appealed against the ruling to the court of cassation and would also apply to Turkey's top election authority on Friday.
Istanbul's jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's main political rival and CHP's presidential candidate who was jailed last year on charges widely seen as political, said it was not just a move against CHP but "a coup against Turkey, against democracy".
"This is serious. It transcends parties. It is time for the nation to come together to defend Turkey," he wrote on X.
The case is widely seen as a politically motivated attempt to hobble the CHP, with analysts saying it was the continuation of the process that began with Imamoglu's arrest.
"We knew this was where Erdogan was headed, and yet this is an unprecedented assault on whatever has remained of the democratic space," Gonul Tol of the Washington-based Middle East Institute told AFP.
"It is basically re-engineering the opposition, just like how Putin has shaped a loyal opposition. That’s where we are going, it's unprecedented," she said.
Political analyst Berk Esen said trying to change the opposition's leadership through the courts was "unprecedented", warning that accepting Kilicdaroglu as leader would effectively be "a compromise with the regime".
"It is tantamount to whitewashing the ongoing lawlessness," he wrote on X of a figure widely seen as a pawn of the government.
Last year, Kilicdaroglu said he would be willing to take on the leadership if the court overturned the primary result, sparking uproar within the CHP.
Writing on X, the 77-year-old said the ruling "should not be an occasion for division but an opportunity to unite" and "set aside grievances".
As party leader, he was a lacklustre figure who chalked up a string of electoral defeats and barely made any dents in the armour of Erdogan's AKP.
He was ousted at the party congress five months after losing a bitterly-fought presidential campaign against Erdogan, leaving the party in crisis.
Things changed after Ozel was elected: within months, he led the CHP to a resounding local election victory.
He later became the face of Turkey's biggest street protests in a decade which were triggered by the arrest of Imamoglu, who is still in jail and battling an array of legal cases alleging everything from corruption to espionage and terror ties.
The biggest case against him opened in March with prosecutors seeking to have him jailed for 2,430 years. Should he barred from running, observers expect Ozel, 51, to emerge as the likely candidate for the presidential race, due by 2028.
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