 2023 congress and reinstate former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as party leader, according to a recent opinion poll.){kind=link}
A majority of Turks opposed a possible court ruling that would annul the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 congress and reinstate former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as party leader, according to a recent opinion poll.
The results of MetroPOLL’s “Turkey’s Pulse” survey for May were announced on X by the company’s founder, Özer Sencar.
Sencar said the question was asked before a court on May 21 annulled the CHP’s 38th Ordinary Congress held in November 2023, when Özgür Özel defeated Kılıçdaroğlu and became party chairman.
Metropoll's May survey was conducted before the "absolute nullity" ruling was issued. The aim was to ascertain public opinion on such a potentially binding decision. pic.twitter.com/6sAsVXHE0h
— Ozer Sencar (@ozersencar1) June 8, 2026
The survey was conducted on 2,136 people in 28 provinces.
Respondents were asked whether they found it correct for a court to invalidate the CHP congress on the grounds that it was legally invalid from the outset and reinstate Kılıçdaroğlu as party chairman.
While 62.1 percent said they did not find such a ruling correct, 27 percent said they did, with 10.9 percent saying they had no opinion or declining to answer.
According to a comparative table shared by Sencar, opposition to such a ruling decreased slightly from 64.3 percent in September 2025 to 62.1 percent in May 2026, while support rose from 24 percent to 27 percent.
The poll also showed that opposition to a possible annulment ruling was strongest among CHP voters.
Among those who voted for the CHP in the May 14, 2023, parliamentary election, 74.5 percent said they did not find such a ruling correct, while 20.4 percent supported it.
Among voters of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), 54.4 percent said they opposed the possible ruling, while 34.7 percent supported it.
A total of 46.1 percent of voters of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the AKP’s election ally, said they found the ruling correct, while 43.4 percent said they did not.
The results come amid continuing turmoil in the CHP after last month’s court ruling concerning the 2023 party congress.
The court ruled that the congress was legally invalid and ordered Kılıçdaroğlu and the party bodies elected under his leadership to return to office as an interim measure. The ruling also removed Özel and the current party administration from office.
The court ruling has plunged Turkey’s oldest political party into a leadership crisis, sparked protests and intensified criticism that the judiciary is being used to reshape the opposition.
The decision amounted to one of the most dramatic judicial interventions in Turkey’s main opposition party in recent years.
The case concerns allegations of irregularities in the 2023 leadership vote, including claims of vote buying and manipulation. The CHP denies wrongdoing and says the lawsuits are part of an effort to undermine the party’s elected leadership.
CHP officials rejected the ruling, while Özel and his supporters moved to convene an extraordinary congress in an effort to challenge Kılıçdaroğlu’s court-ordered return to the party leadership.
Delegates from the CHP reached the required number of signatures on June 1 to convene an extraordinary congress, after 111 CHP lawmakers, including Özel, called for the party to hold a congress on July 12.
Under CHP bylaws, an extraordinary congress must be convened within 45 days if an absolute majority of delegates signs a petition.
Kılıçdaroğlu led the CHP for 13 years before losing the party leadership to Özel. He was also the opposition’s joint presidential candidate in 2023, when he lost to Erdoğan.
The CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party, was established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, and has long identified itself with the country’s republican and secular traditions.
The party has been under growing legal and political pressure since its major gains in the March 2024 local elections, with more than 20 of its mayors and hundreds of municipal officials detained or arrested in investigations the party says are politically motivated.
İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s most prominent political rival and the CHP’s presidential candidate, was arrested in March 2025 on corruption and terrorism-related charges that he denies.
The CHP says the court cases and investigations targeting the party are politically motivated and aimed at rolling back its local election gains. The government denies targeting the opposition and says the judiciary acts independently.