Tekin to stay in CHP despite resignation

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Tekin has been a supporter of Kılıçdaroğlu against intra-party opposition. DHA photo

The former deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Gürsel Tekin, yesterday said he would not leave the CHP following his resignation from its administration.

“I will keep up my efforts for political renewal and continue to serve the CHP,” Tekin wrote on his Twitter page, speaking out for the first time since his resignation May 3. He said he would travel today from Ankara to Istanbul, the city where he rose to prominence in the CHP’s ranks.

Tekin resigned from his position because of long-running disagreements over the party’s vision and a row over how to organize its influential Istanbul branch. Tekin, who previously led the CHP’s Istanbul branch and was widely credited for the party’s rising popularity in the city, was also annoyed that other party heavyweights such as Nihat Matkap, Erdoğan Toprak and Aydın Ayaydın were interfering in CHP affairs in Istanbul and other provincial branches, contrary to CHP’s pledges to give more say to its grassroots supporters. He reportedly decided to step down after becoming convinced that CHP chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu approved of the interventions.

Matkap denied any tensions with Tekin but asserted his role in the party’s organization. “He had no animosity toward me. I’ve been heading the party organization for nine months and stability began with me. It was wavering when I arrived,” Matkap told the CNN Türk channel.

Ayaydın, for his part, said: “I don’t know what I did wrong, but it bothers me that my name is being mentioned. If it is a crime to be close to the party’s leader, then I am a criminal.” One of the CHP’s most popular figures, Tekin has been a staunch supporter of Kılıçdaroğlu against intra-party opposition since the crisis that rocked the party in 2010, when then-chairman Deniz Baykal stepped down amid a sex tape scandal.