CHP leader to reshuffle party’s top executive body

ANKARA

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will reshuffle his team of senior aides in a bid to soothe the concerns of dissidents in his party, CHP spokesperson Bülent Tezcan has said.

“The party’s MYK is made up of a board of members who are determined by our chair. For this reason our chair always has the authority to change the MYK and continue with a new MYK,” Tezcan said on Aug. 8 after a Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting at the party headquarters.

Tezcan said the party’s bylaw grants the leader the authority to choose his top aides within the executive body.

When asked whether the MYK members submitted their resignations, Tezcan said that “technically it is not necessary.”

“All of our MYK members have expressed their full cooperation and collaboration with our chair in all of his decisions,” Tezcan added.

The CHP has for some time now been dealing with internal divisions between the party management and the dissident movement de facto led by Muharrem İnce, the CHP’s presidential candidate in the June elections, who has called for change in the party’s leadership and administration following their defeat in the polls.

The dissidents had called for an extraordinary convention to elect a new leader, but the party management on Aug. 6 said they failed to collect enough signatures needed for the convention.

But the dissidents are insisting on a change in leadership, unchanged since 2010 and which has been unable to defeat the ruling party in elections since. Kılıçdaroğlu’s move to change his aide team was interpreted as a sign of self-criticism before the upcoming local elections slated for 2019.

“I hope and believe that in the following period the cadres that our leader chooses will shape the new period in the CHP and prepare the party for the local elections as soon as possible and draw a road map for Turkey amid this political and economic crisis environment,” Tezcan said.

Kılıçdaroğlu is expected to reveal the new team in the following days.

Dissidents push to change bylaw

Despite failing to collect the necessary number of signatures for the convention, the rebels are pushing to amend party bylaw, which sets the requirements for the leadership election.

To go for a convention to change the party bylaws, fewer signatures are required. The dissidents also say that an article in the bylaw which requires the signatures of at least half of the delegates for leadership change can be changed in the convention.

Meanwhile, the dissidents are staging sit-in protests at the CHP headquarters.

A big chair was placed in front of the building on which dissident CHP members are sitting one by one, in a symbolic move to show their demand to change the leader.

İnce on Aug. 7 vowed to “continue the struggle,” saying the will of the signatory delegates will be “protected.”

“We will not leave the people who have trusted us alone. No one should be forced to leave the party or their positions. We will continue this struggle together,” he said on Twitter.