Politics is not only a struggle for power; it is also the art of organizing a moral memory, a sense of truth and social reason. For the Republican People's Party, the year 2026 is not just an election calendar; it is a test of the principles with which the CHP will look at both the country and its own past.
Today, the CHP's biggest risk is that politics will be reduced to a narrow line of defense and intra-party showdowns.
compression.
Of course, the allegations of injustice regarding the legal processes against Ekrem İmamoğlu cannot be ignored; however, when a party concentrates all its energy around a single name, it detaches itself from the real agenda of the country. Voters expect solutions, visions and programs from the opposition, not just objections. The CHP's main task here should be to ensure that Ekrem İmamoğlu is tried impartially. If Ekrem İmamoğlu has committed a crime, he should be punished.
The Kılıçdaroğlu issue: Victory or vindication?
The recent increasingly harsh language within the CHP tends to reduce politics to an accounting of “winners and losers”. Yet the history of politics reminds us of an instructive distinction: Being victorious is not the same as being right.
Two historical figures are particularly illuminating in explaining this distinction: Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno.
Galileo was put on trial by the authorities of the time for saying that the earth rotated and was forced to back down. The court won; Galileo was silenced. In other words, for that moment, it was the power that was victorious and Galileo who was right. History has written who was right; not who won.
Giordano Bruno is the harsher side of this story. Bruno was put on trial for his ideas contrary to the dominant thought order of the time and was sentenced to death for refusing to back down. Here, the “victor” was the power and the “price” was paid by Bruno for his claim to be true to the truth. Galileo and Bruno are two different experiences of truth from the same era: One survived by retreating; the other paid the price by not retreating. But both show us this: The measure of truth is not the momentary balance of power; it is the conscience of the time.
In terms of today's debates within the CHP, these examples should suggest the following: Kılıçdaroğlu may have lost the elections, but the political line he represented, the alliance experience he established, the social consolidation that reached 48 percent and the pursuit of democratic politics cannot be ignored with a simple language of ’liquidation“. It is one thing to criticize a leader; it is quite another to try to push him and the masses who voted for him out of history.
The CHP has shrunk every time it acted with the psychology of victory and lost its grounds of righteousness. The language of intra-party purges may provide “control” in the short term, but in the long term it erodes social trust. Voters do not digest the humiliation of the leader they voted for; sometimes they do not object loudly but silently walk away.
Lesson from history: Ecevit and social expansion
The rise of Bülent Ecevit in the 1970s is one of the most concrete examples of how the CHP grew. Ecevit became an alternative to power not through internal party purges, but through a concrete program addressed to producers, workers, peasants and the urban poor. “Work the soil, use the water” is not a slogan; it has become the summary of the new relationship between the state and the producer.
This is what the CHP needs today: Founding, not defending. Defending the municipalities is of course important, but it is even more important to present a program ready to govern the country.
What should CHP talk about in 2026?
1) Agriculture and Livestock: Producers are not only impoverished, they have been pushed out of the system. Diesel, fertilizer and feed costs suffocate production. CHP should put forward concrete support models such as cooperatives, purchase guarantees, regional production planning and transparent support models that reduce input costs.
2) Education: Free school meals in public schools, merit and secure employment for teachers, public solutions to the housing problem for university students are all areas where the CHP can rebuild trust.
3) Health: Instead of a commercialized health system, a public model that puts the patient at the center should be explained. The problems of health workers are not ideological, but a matter of public order.
4) Tourism and Regional Development: Tourism is not only a means of foreign exchange, but also of regional prosperity. A model that protects small artisans and local businesses and secures seasonal workers is possible.
5) Unemployment and Production: Production-based employment projects should be discussed, not aid policies. Young people should be offered jobs and vocational transitions, not promises of hope.
CONCLUSION; CHP has two paths in front of it: Either a narrow and exclusionary politics focused on being victorious; or a constructive politics centered on being right, inclusiveness and the agenda of the country.
Galileo and Bruno remind us: Power may “win”, but truth and conscience determine social trust in the long run.
2026 should not be a year of searching for a new ‘savior’ for the CHP, but a year of rebuilding reason, conscience and program.