Collected photo

ISTANBUL, Sept 6, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Turkey's main opposition party has 
announced it will hold an extraordinary congress on September 21 after a 
court ousted its Istanbul leadership on graft allegations, a party source 
confirmed to AFP on Saturday.

The decision comes amid growing political pressure on the Republican People's 
Party (CHP) after a court this week annulled the outcome of its Istanbul 
provincial congress in October 2023, throwing out its leader Ozgur Celik and 
195 others.

More than 900 CHP delegates on Friday submitted a petition to a local 
election board in the capital Ankara to authorise the congress, the source 
told AFP.

The congress is expected to shape the party's strategy as it faces legal 
uncertainty.

The CHP, the largest opposition force in the Turkish parliament, won a huge 
victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP in the 2024 local 
elections.

Since then, the party has become a target of a wave of arrests and legal 
cases that culminated in March with the jailing of Istanbul's popular and 
powerful mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on corruption allegations that he denies.

The arrest and jailing of Imamoglu, seen as a key rival to Erdogan, sparked 
street protests unprecedented in a decade.

Authorities has clamped down on demonstrations detaining nearly 2,000 people 
including students and journalists -- most of whom were later released.

On Tuesday, the court ousted the CHP Istanbul leader and scores of party 
delegates and named a five-man team to replace them in a move that saw the 
stock market plunge 5.5 percent.

The CHP has filed an appeal against the ruling.

Political analyst Berk Esen told AFP the move was a "rehearsal" for the 
bigger case against the party's national leadership seeking to hobble it as 
an opposition force.

-'CHP stands tall'-

An almost identical lawsuit is hanging over its national leadership in a 
closely-watched case that will resume in Ankara on September 15.

A petition of over 900 party delegates demanding an extraordinary congress 
within just a day and a half comes against the possibility of a similar court 
ruling, observers say.

Gul Ciftci, a CHP deputy leader responsible for election and legal affairs, 
said the extraordinary congress "will not only determine the future of our 
party but will also reaffirm faith in pluralism, diversity, and democratic 
politics in Turkey," in a comment on X on Friday.

She hailed the decision for the congress, made with the delegates' will, as 
"the strongest proof that the CHP stands tall against all attempts at 
intervention by the government".

The party source told AFP that to boost the chances of the request for an 
extraordinary congress being accepted, signatures were not collected from the 
196 Istanbul delegates who were suspended by the court order.