CHP and the Party’s founding principles

Investigative author Baki Nedim Baltacı explains in Cumhuriyet's op-ed column that the CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu caused an axis shift in the Party and oriented it to the right wing. But after the election disaster, it is hard to walk the rest of the way without restoring the factory settings.

Publication: 14.07.2023 - 14:46
CHP and the Party’s founding principles
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After the political disaster in the latest general elections, the main opposition CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu stated that considering the difficulty achieved by bringing parties together with different orientations, the vote rate was very high. To those who think the election result was a disaster and that he should resign immediately, he said that he will not leave the captain's cabin until he steers the ship to a safe harbor.


Upon this discourse, which can also be perceived as a farewell message, some CHP supporters and media personalities quickly circulated the message that Kılıçdaroğlu was unfairly treated in this process and stated that he is a hardworking leader. 


The "caste" formed within the party with right-wing, Islamist counselors, deputies, and provincial and district cadres, who seem as if they will stay for life, has created a phenomenon that does not allow for a change. CHP is not an ordinary party; it had hundreds of losses throughout its history, particularly during the coup periods.


Kılıçdaroğlu is a leader who caused an axis shift in the party policies by orienting it to the right wing and damaged the secularism principle of the CHP with mystical messages. Moreover, he considered religious sects as non-governmental organizations.


CHP should not be led by right-wing politicians like Bülent Kuşoğlu and Abdüllatif Şener (former members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly), but by cadres who are loyal to the founding principles of the CHP.


It is incomprehensible that CHP remained silent at a time when the US is establishing a base in the disarmament zone in the Greek coastal city, "Alexandroupolis" in Western Thrace; and the AKP was transforming the country into an Islamic/Middle Eastern society by destroying the demographic structure and the educational system.


If the members of the Party Assembly will stay in the "cemeteries of silence" and the CHP fails to return to its founding codes, we will have to move the party to the “social democracy morgue.”