'Et tu, Ekrem?': Turkey's CHP leader is betrayed by his protege, but maybe it's a sign

Beware the Ides of March, the seer warned Julius Caesar. Beware the dog days of summer, a sage might have warned Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the embattled long-time leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Given his stinging electoral defeat in late May, few observers of Turkish politics were surprised last week when news broke that Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu had been plotting to oust Mr Kilicdaroglu from the post he has held since 2010. The mayor had, after all, recently launched a website calling for change in the party’s leadership.

That, however, did not make the betrayal any less shocking. In a leaked video, Mr Imamoglu is seen leading a meeting with several top CHP figures who had been close to Mr Kilicdaroglu, discussing the best way to grab the crown. He reportedly organised several Zoom calls with his co-conspirators since the presidential run-off two months ago.

“Et tu, Ekrem?” Kemal Bey may have wondered in response, echoing Caesar’s question to Brutus, similarly his protege, as he is assassinated. Setting aside for a moment the turmoil within the opposition, the incident highlights two defining elements of Turkish politics.

The first is the general lack of accountability. There seems to be a pervasive unwillingness, mainly among male leaders, to acknowledge errors and publicly self-criticise. One could point to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defiance after the AKP surprisingly lost its parliamentary majority in 2015.

Or to his parliamentary partner, Devlet Bahceli, who held firm in response to a 2016 leadership challenge (by Meral Aksener, Umit Ozdag, and Sinan Ogan, all now key opposition leaders). Or to how the Gulen movement, even after its domestic evisceration in the wake of being blamed for the failed coup that same year, came under withering criticism yet largely refused to make changes to its leadership or vision.

After losing the run-off, not only did Mr Kilicdaroglu not resign, he never stepped forth to apologise for missteps or attempt to explain what had gone wrong. Essentially, he acted as if Turkey’s 2023 vote – the most hopeful, then most difficult, moment for the opposition in decades – never happened. Yet he did find time to admit that he had made a secret one-on-one deal with Mr Ozdag, a far-right leader, promising him three ministries in return for his backing during the run-off.

That move, taken without consulting any of his opposition alliance co-leaders, was quickly criticised as autocratic. Perhaps, but a more urgent concern is that this tendency to stand firm and remain unaccountable undermines the opposition’s ability to learn from its losses and improve. If when I lose I’ve not erred, that means defeat is acceptable – the worst possible opinion a politician could hold.

The second element is that there may be some justification for Turkish politicians’ paranoia. Mr Erdogan’s longstanding position is that Turkey and the AKP are beset by foes from all sides, and that he and his backers need to stay united and always be ready to fight.

It’s akin to a fear-mongering common among populists, which can come off as hyperbolic and overly dramatic. But Turkey has in the past decade faced a wave of terrorist attacks from ISIS, a brutal, year-long war with Kurdish militants in the south-east, and a serious coup attempt, along with a virulent nationwide protest movement and several major corruption scandals.

Even now, a long-time AKP member may be hinting at rebellion. At a party convention some years ago, Hacer Cinar urged God to take some years from her life and give them to Mr Erdogan so that he had more time to lead Turkey. However, as the lira hit new record lows, she appears to have changed tune.

“We have continued to stand with our state as it has dealt with this economic crisis,” Ms Cinar said in a widely shared speech last week. “But now it’s over – our patience is gone.”

As the AKP has begun campaigning in recent weeks for the March 2024 local elections, Turkey’s opposition has run out of patience as well. In early July, Tanju Ozcan, the outspoken CHP mayor of Bolu, began a march to CHP headquarters in Ankara to demand a leadership change. Mr Imamoglu launched his change website the next day.

Most top CHP figures seem to agree with Mr Imamoglu that change is needed, but that a party coup is the wrong way to go about it. After the video leak, parliamentarian and CHP deputy group leader Ozgur Ozel acknowledged that the party needed to self-criticise and reckon with its recent defeat or lose again in March.

Responding to the video, Mr Kilicdaroglu said he was disturbed by Mr Imamoglu’s plan and secret meeting, which he saw as “unethical”. Yet on the weekend, he confirmed that Mr Imamoglu would be the CHP candidate for Istanbul mayor in March, and the two shook hands and seemed cordial at a party gathering in Ankara. The CHP will hold its next convention before the upcoming vote, and only then will we begin to appreciate the full impact of this.

But the fallout from the leaked video has already begun. On Friday, CHP Istanbul chair Canan Kaftancioglu announced she will soon step down from her post. In an interview, she explained that she had grown tired of the internal mudslinging, citing unfair accusations that she had dismissed Istanbul district mayors because they had sided with Mr Imamoglu. Ms Kaftancioglu agreed that it was time for a change at the top and that Mr Imamoglu is the party’s most powerful figure politically. Yet she reportedly told journalist Fatih Altayli she does not think he would be a good leader.

Either way, her departure is a major loss for the party. Ms Kaftancioglu was the driving force behind Mr Imamoglu’s double victory over the governing AKP in Istanbul in 2019 and has since been seen as a rising star. The irony is that a Turkish court last year banned her from politics, revoked her CHP membership, and sentenced her to 10 years in prison for insulting the president.

But in Turkey, such bans often prove to be a boon. Mr Erdogan was banned from politics in 1998 for reading a poem seen as anti-democratic, but he emerged from prison three years later to help launch the AKP. His ban was cleared in 2003 and he has led Turkey ever since.

Interestingly, the CHP leader at that time, Deniz Baykal, helped the AKP change the law in order to end Mr Erdogan’s political ban. Mr Baykal was later felled by a leaked video that showed him in a bedroom with a female MP.

Not unlike Mr Kilicdaroglu, Mr Baykal had seen the CHP’s vote share increase in every election under his watch, yet could never get over the hump. Might a leaked video also mark the beginning of the end for Mr Kilicdaroglu? If so, then fall, Kemal, and let the next generation take charge.