Within opposition circles, every eye is fixed on the \u201cCongress-annulment lawsuit\u201d scheduled for 30 June. The prospect that the results of the CHP\u2019s 38th Ordinary Congress\u2014where the party leadership changed hands\u2014might be overturned by a ruling of absolute nullity is causing the political pundits who dwell on social media to lose sleep.<\/p>\n
Yet for this crowd, the true nightmare is not that possibility itself but the stance former chairman Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu might take if absolute nullity is declared. From K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s words: \u201cI can\u2019t issue such a statement. I hope an absolute-nullity ruling won\u2019t emerge, but if it does, I can\u2019t leave my party to a court-appointed trustee. If I refuse, a trustee will be sent in. Should I just hand it over to a trustee?\u201d, it is clear he is itching to retake the party chair, even if it means getting there by appointment, by drawing lots, by reading omens, or even by flipping a coin or rolling dice.<\/p>\n
So, after the debacle of the 2023 elections (and the policies he pursued afterward that further eroded his standing among the main-opposition electorate), Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu has seen his public support plummet. On what, or on whom, is he relying? Put differently: on the final voyage steered under his own captaincy, the ship capsized, whereas on the first voyage in which he was not even on deck the CHP secured victory on storm-tossed seas. What, then, is the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s audacity? The answer is straightforward: Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu is banking on four elements\u2014negative partisanship, the opposition media, CHP opinion leaders, and the CHP parliamentary group.<\/p>\n
Negative Partisanship<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Maggiotto and James E. Piereson\u2019s 1977 \u201chostility hypothesis\u201d posits that animosity toward a rival party reduces the likelihood of straying from one\u2019s own partisan identity. Building on that premise, the negative-partisanship literature likewise holds that voters support a party or candidate less out of positive feelings or party attachment than out of antipathy\u2014even hatred\u2014toward the other side. In Turkey, the political stance corresponding to negative partisanship is anti-Erdo\u011fanism. Indeed, anti-Erdo\u011fanism is not merely a political posture; it is a phenomenon imbued with a powerful emotional identity. So much so that, regardless of party, the vast majority of opposition voters choose alignment not with a party but against Erdo\u011fan himself. One of Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s chief assurances is precisely that anti-Erdo\u011fanist glue\u2014a sameness procedure that binds those voters around a supra-partisan purpose.<\/p>\n K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2014just as in the 2023 elections\u2014hopes that this \u201csameness procedure,\u201d which renders party loyalties meaningless and turns all opposition voters into a single bloc, will once again do its job when the moment arrives. Nor is his optimism entirely misplaced. Lest human memory be condemned to forgetfulness, let us recall the 2023 campaign. Weren\u2019t the doubts and criticisms about his possible candidacy cut off as sharply as with a knife once that candidacy was confirmed? Were those who cried, \u201cStop, crowds\u2014this road is a dead end,\u201d not branded as troublemakers? Was Meral Ak\u015fener and her \u0130Y\u0130 Party, who declared that the opposition had not one but two alternatives better than K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, not accused of sowing discord? Was one of those alternatives tarred as an \u201cANAP leftover\u201d and the other as a \u201cfascist\u201d? Was Muharrem \u0130nce\u2014exercising one of the most fundamental political rights, the right to stand for election\u2014not pelted with stones? Did a clique, parched for office and status after years away from the spoils of power, not market a figure long past his prime as a gallant knight? Was criticizing K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s campaign not treated almost as an act of heresy? When passions flared, did reason not flee? All of this happened\u2014and in abundance. Nothing guarantees that such an atmosphere will not return in the next elections. What is more, because those contests were fought under the formula of a \u201cweak opposition but a strong main opposition,\u201d the institutional capacity of parties outside the CHP was gutted, and non-CHP opposition voters saw their sense of attachment to their own parties eroded. It is precisely this landscape that inspires K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu as he crafts a strategy for a possible comeback. Indeed, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu is the politician who has harvested the richest crop from the field of anti-Erdo\u011fanism. So much so that, despite his dismal record against Erdo\u011fan, despite the presence of more capable alternatives, despite the resistance of his largest partner to his candidacy, despite his weakness in reputable polls, and despite his failure to secure the social legitimacy a candidacy requires, he still managed to become the opposition\u2019s presidential nominee. He pulled this off by exploiting the opposition electorate\u2019s hostility to Erdo\u011fan. K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu has deployed voters\u2019 negative partisanship\u2014their absolute anti-Erdo\u011fanism\u2014as a rationalizing element, an ideological element, and an emotional-moral element all at once.<\/p>\n Negative partisanship has, first and foremost, served to rationalize K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s past electoral defeats. Once his candidacy was declared, the reactions and criticisms leveled against him subsided, and in time the opposition arrived at a consensus that he was, in fact, a fitting candidate. Second, by playing an ideological role, negative partisanship elevated anti-Erdo\u011fanism into an overarching political identity, thereby blurring the ideological differences among opposition parties. This drew around Mr Kemal parties and elites that, at first glance, seemed ideologically incompatible with him. Finally, in its emotional-moral dimension, negative partisanship turned supporting K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu into a moral duty in the eyes of opposition voters. Thus K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu was able to collect all the bonuses that negative partisanship showers from the top down. The scenario in his mind today is the same: once he reassumes\u2014or rather, is appointed to\u2014the party leadership, the initial backlash will soon subside, the CHP rank and file will forget their disappointment, and, energized by negative partisanship\u2014in other words, anti-Erdo\u011fanism\u2014they will once again rally to him.<\/p>\n Opposition Media<\/strong><\/p>\n K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s second great source of confidence is the institutional opposition media. After Do\u011fan Media withdrew from the press ecosystem, Turkey was left without outlets that aim to keep their readers, viewers\u2014in short, their customers\u2014satisfied; in their place a media order has taken root that focuses on pleasing whichever political institution or politician it lives off. Although the mechanism the main opposition commands is not an exact copy of the one built by the government, it is structurally similar. The CHP\u2019s success\u2014especially in local elections\u2014has given the party a measure of privilege in controlling public resources, and the most significant result has been the emergence of this opposition-media system.<\/p>\n Taking the post-2023 revelation of the CHP\u2013Halk TV nexus as our point of departure, we can say this: should K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu reclaim the CHP chair and succeed\u2014above all against Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu and \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel\u2014in shrinking the spheres of influence of his internal rivals, the institutional opposition media will ultimately have no option but to fall in line behind him. Once drawn back into K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s orbit, that media will almost certainly devote the bulk of its energy to shoring up his battered leadership image. Here we must also recall the media\u2019s power to stoke negative partisanship. Having forfeited its financial independence and forced to rely on the main-opposition party\u2019s patronage simply to keep the lights on, the opposition media has long provided a fertile seedbed for anti-Erdo\u011fanism. The political impulses and emotions of a polarized opposition electorate are both gratified and molded through such outlets; indeed, the very moral framework for how an opposition voter \u201cought\u201d to position themselves on any given event is laid down by the opposition media itself. During the 2023 campaign, for instance, that media branded Muharrem \u0130nce \u201cthe Palace\u2019s man\u201d and Meral Ak\u015fener \u201ca deep-state agent,\u201d turning their political stances into matters of moral judgment and manipulating mass perception for no other reason than their refusal to hew to K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s line. In an age when propaganda eclipses truth\u2014and in a country like Turkey, where heroism and treachery teeter on the fine wire between a moment\u2019s applause and a moment\u2019s jeering\u2014it is plain that a dependent opposition media will remain one of Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s most potent instruments for steering the masses. In this connection, it is worth adding, as a side note, that an independent broadcaster such as Fatih Altayl\u0131\u2014widely watched by opposition audiences and among the fiercest critics of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2014finds himself, metaphorically speaking, kept under lock and key.<\/p>\n CHP Opinion Leaders and the CHP Parliamentary Group<\/strong><\/p>\n Politics, as everyone knows, is a stage where those who break their vows the moment the fodder runs out, those who attain sudden enlightenment the day they lose office, and those who become paragons of morality the instant their barley ration is cut prance about at will. One of the people who understands Turkey\u2019s political talent pool most intimately is, without doubt, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, who spent thirteen years at the helm of the main opposition. Over that span he rubbed shoulders with many a figure, and he surely carries in his mind a template for the typical political operator\u2019s temperament. According to that template, the CHP-adjacent opinion leaders who yesterday elevated him to the rank of a Thirteenth Imam and today treat him like a modern-day Yazid can be expected\u2014true to their usual routines\u2014to bow once more before power. Those who refuse may still fall silent for fear of excommunication by the neighborhood. Assuming he can reclaim the CHP seal, K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu likely counts on these same figures snapping to attention again and on being able to shape the opposition public to his own liking.<\/p>\n The CHP candidate slate for the 2023 elections was drawn up while Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu was still party chairman. As regards the trustee question, the sitting CHP deputies fall into three camps: those who stand with \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel\u2019s leadership, those who remain loyal to K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, and those adopting a wait-and-see approach. By far the largest of the three are the wait-and-seers. Given that many political elites are driven by the refined concerns of protecting their seat, securing the next term, and claiming the lion\u2019s share of the party\u2019s spoils, perks, and status, the prevalence of that wait-and-see stance is hardly surprising. Still, if K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu should regain the helm, some of those now backing \u00d6zel may well revisit their position as the new leadership\u2019s influence ebbs and K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s clout grows. The CHP caucus in the Grand National Assembly therefore stands as one of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s chief pillars of support.<\/p>\n Looking at the current tableau, it is no exaggeration to say that Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s moves are more deliberate and calculated than Nasreddin Hodja\u2019s famous attempt to ferment yogurt in a lake on the off-chance that it might \u201cjust work.\u201d Can K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu succeed despite the opposition electorate\u2019s still-unresolved 2023 trauma and the host of impasses that lie before him? For an essay that opens those questions to debate, the wisest course may be to await the ruling of 30 June\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Within opposition circles, every eye is fixed on the \u201cCongress-annulment lawsuit\u201d scheduled for 30 June. The prospect that the results of the CHP\u2019s 38th Ordinary Congress\u2014where the party leadership changed hands\u2014might be overturned by a ruling of absolute nullity is causing the political pundits who dwell on social media to lose sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":1510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[175,242,46,241,192],"ppma_author":[240],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-chp","tag-congress","tag-ekrem-imamoglu","tag-kemal-kilicdaroglu","tag-ozgur-ozel"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authors":[{"term_id":240,"user_id":23,"is_guest":0,"slug":"nurettin-kalkan","display_name":"Dr. Nurettin Kalkan","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Dr.-Nurettin-KALKAN.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Dr.-Nurettin-KALKAN.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toplum.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}