The main problem of the opposition in Turkey is not that it has not been in power for 23 years. The real problem is that it has not been able to discuss as a political problem why it has not been in power for 23 years. This is not just a matter of losing elections; it is also a crisis of institutional self-criticism and historical consciousness.
Today, the Republican People's Party is not only a party that has lost elections; it has also turned into a structure that is unable to analyze its defeat, unable to make the power relations within itself the subject of political criticism, and has surrendered its institutional mind to personal networks. This is not the result of an external attack; it is an internal process of ideological and organizational decay. This text is a harsh internal reckoning with CHP delegates, cadres, members and those who still believe that this party can produce a historical breakthrough. It analyzes a period in which democratic mechanisms within the party have been eroded and ideological dissolution has been masked by neoliberal pragmatism.
“WHY IS ”CHP FOR ALL" NOT A SLOGAN BUT A DOWNFALL?
“The slogan ”CHP for everyone" is politically meaningless. A party cannot be the party of everyone; parties are defined by ideological frameworks and class-social axes of representation. From this perspective, “For everyone” discourse does not actually make sense for any electoral group, because politics is the art of positioning and ideological consistency, not compromise. The character of a party is revealed in what class-social interests it represents and what it stands against. The CHP today behaves not as an ideological party but as a pragmatist electoral organization. This is not a strategy of expansion, but the result of ideological emptiness and the erosion of institutional memory. The party's inability to conduct a social class analysis and its focus on vote optimization, forgetting its historical mission, has been described in the literature on modern social democracy as “the trap of ideological pragmatism” can be defined as.
LEADERSHIP OR SOVEREIGNTY?
The issue to be discussed in the CHP “who is the leader” The real issue is not how leadership is established and what forms of relations it is based on. The issue of Ekrem İmamoğlu is not a matter of a person, but of de facto relations of domination and centralized networks established within the party. Today in the CHP, the party is officially shaped by the headquarters and de facto by a political network with reference to İmamoğlu.
This is the network:
Based on personal loyalty, not institutional loyalty
Pragmatic, not ideological
Technocratic, not classist
It relies on a neoliberal political mind, not a social democratic one
This is a form of hegemony, not leadership. The center of gravity of party decisions is determined by media power and personal influence rather than democratic debate and programmatic principles. This contrasts with the revolutionary-populist roots of the classical social democratic tradition and accelerates the ideological emptying of the party.
PM, MYK AND 39TH CONGRESS AND IMAMOĞLU DIRECTIVE
Decision-making processes in the CHP are no longer organization-based, but network and directive-based. With the 39th Ordinary Congress, the PM and FMK structures were shaped in line with İmamoğlu's directives to replace the democratic mechanisms within the party. The party organs function under a de facto centralist hierarchy in content, even if it appears formally. Institutional procedures and ideological debates are controlled by a supra-party sovereignty network. This structure has transformed the party into a mechanism that reduces it to electoral success and the careers of certain figures. Party policies are discussed in terms of Silivri and İmamoğlu's career rather than the social and economic problems of the country, and all strategic and ideological planning is shaped within this narrow field.
The cadres who have moved to the party leadership share the following common characteristics:
Party origins are weak
No ties to class politics
Their relationship with the social democratic tradition is superficial
They have a market-oriented, managerialist and technocratic political mind
This is the result of a conscious cadre engineering and a centralized structure shaped by İmamoğlu's directive. Instead of intra-party balance and pluralism, a single-centered decision-making mechanism and a politics based on media power are being produced.
CV INSTEAD OF POLITICS, NETWORK INSTEAD OF ORGANIZATION
What is happening in the CHP is not political pluralism but cadre engineering. Deputy lists, MYK appointments, PM balances, advisory staff and decision-making mechanisms around municipalities work with the same logic: recruitment, transfer and loyalty. Politics has been replaced by CVs; organization by LinkedIn profiles; struggle by “manageability” discourse. This is not a transformation but an ideological emptying.
NEOLIBERAL MIND AND MUNICIPALITY-CENTERED POLITICS
The dominant line in the CHP's top leadership is clear:
Weak emphasis on the social state
Labor policies are abstract
There is no class politics
There is no conflict with capital
“Market realities” sanctified
This is not social democracy, but neoliberal adaptation. Instead of producing a political vision, the practice of municipalism is limited to the logic of market-compatible technocratic management. Internal party energy and resources have been channeled solely to support İmamoğlu's political and career goals.
RIGHT-WING TRANSFERS AND RALLY BANALITY
Names that yesterday insulted the CHP and yesterday turned their backs on the labor struggle are now being brought into the party without any ideological accounting. Worse still, these names are being used in rally squares “most leftist” or “most progressive” "I am not a party, I am not a party". Beyond making a mockery of the voters' minds, this situation shows that the party has lost its ideological memory and surrendered to pragmatism focused solely on electoral success.
INTRA-PARTY PURGES AND DISCIPLINARY REGIME
Purges in the CHP are no longer an exception, but a management technique. Those purged
Those who want a primary election
Questioning municipal practices
Advocates for in-party education
Those who say merit
Those who reject the cult of the leader
Criticism = Discipline
Loyalty = Protection
This structure is not democratic; on the contrary, it rots the party from within.
FREE PRIVATE AND CONSECUTIVE CONGRESSES
Instead of initiating a process of purification and reform within the party, Özgür Özel's presidency has turned into a strategy of organizing congresses one after another in order to consolidate his legitimacy and to impose a centralized management system based on Imamoğlu tutelage. These consecutive congresses, instead of strengthening the party organization or ensuring democratic balance in terms of content, aimed to secure Özgür Özel's position and pacified the democratic mechanisms within the party.
“THE ”SHEEP" ISSUE (ENHANCED)
The CHP has from time to time voiced “sheep” This discourse is indicative of a serious error of orientation and a lack of political analysis. The party leadership is not able to mobilize its own base or the voters of other parties. “sheep” For example, to belittle the AKP electorate in this way contradicts both political reality and historical reasoning. Yet here is the stupidity, “sheep” not in those who are labeled as such, but in those who label.
Because “sheep” The people they call themselves are governed not by their own intentions, but by a regime that is shaped by the choices they make and whose consent they give, often without realizing it. In other words, the CHP administration, in the system it has created due to its own ideological vacuum, organizational weakness and personal domination networks, actually exists within a regime that is carried out through the preferences of these voters. “Sheep.” Being a party leader does not mean being a victim of herd psychology, but positioning oneself within the political framework shaped by the regime. The party leadership needs to “sheep” is nothing but an admission of its own stupidity and ideological collapse. This is not only a mistake of political morality; it also means losing sight of the basis of political analysis. If politics is shaped not by affiliation and ideology, but by organization and state mechanisms, “sheep” being in charge is not to be blamed; on the contrary, the lack of leadership and ideological lack is to be blamed.
ORGANIZATIONS SAVE, NOT LEADERS
Organizations, not leaders, save parties. The CHP's crisis is not a crisis of leadership, but a crisis of organizational collapse. If the organization does not produce politics, the leader collapses; if the organization does not think, the leader talks but cannot carry. Today CHP organizations:
Does not produce policy
The program does not discuss
No class analysis
No power strategy
It is not an organization; it is an intermediary mechanism without politics.
ACCOUNTING FOR 23 YEARS
CHP has not been in power for 23 years. Worse, this situation has been normalized. This is not politics, it is habituation; it is the routinization of an institution by abandoning its historical mission.
Primary elections will be mandatory
In-party training will be institutionalized
Merit will prevail over loyalty
Discipline will be free from criticism
Municipality-party relationship will become transparent
Neoliberal cadre domination will be broken
And most importantly: CHP will do politics again.
THE LAST WORD TO DELEGATES
Every vote you cast at the congress endorses a system, not just a person. There cannot be a CHP for everyone. CHP either becomes the party of those with an ideology or the party of nothing. This text is a warning, a call and a note to history: This party will not be saved by silencing, but by speaking.
IBB FILE LAUNDERING REGIME INSTEAD OF POLITICS
The CHP's political energy in the last two years has not been directed towards the burning problems of the country, class contradictions, the labor regime or the regime crisis. This energy has been almost entirely devoted to the political management of the debates revolving around the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and the protection of a particular figure. Allegations were not discussed, demands for an audit were suppressed, questions were silenced by labeling them as “the mouth of power”. This is the suspension of intra-party politics and is not a democratic mechanism, but an exoneration regime that operates as a protective reflex.
OPPOSITION RELEGATED TO SİLIVRİ
The CHP's political line for the last two years has reduced the opposition to a narrative of victimization built around a single name, rather than a line of reckoning with the regime. Silivri is a regime reality, but it cannot be a strategy for a political party. Today, instead of a holistic regime critique that includes the struggle for justice, the rule of law, imprisoned politicians, journalists, trade unionists and students, the CHP has compressed the struggle into a narrative centered almost exclusively on İmamoğlu.
IMAMOGLU'S INTRA-PARTY DOMINANCE
Today, Ekrem İmamoğlu is not just a mayor or a possible candidate in the CHP; he has established a de facto sovereignty within the party. This sovereignty:
It relies on media power, not the will of the organization
It relies on perception management, not programmatic debate
Operates according to power relations, not party law
İmamoğlu's position within the CHP operates as a supra-party center rather than a political leader.
38TH CONGRESS, PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATIONS AND TUTELAGE
The 38th Ordinary Congress was recorded not as a moment of renewal in the history of the CHP, but as a rupture in which the organizational will was redesigned. What happened in this congress is not a political contest, but an internal party contraction. The seizure of provincial administrations, the centralization of delegations and organizational balancing games have replaced democratic politics with operational reason in the CHP.
SOLUTION: NEW ORGANIZATION, NEW POLITICS, NEW CHP
The way out of this impasse is not through new slogans, new faces or marketing techniques, but through the CHP becoming a political subject again. The party must be purged of personal sovereignty and career networks; the organization must once again become the main force that makes decisions, produces policies and supervises the leadership. Primaries should be the rule, not the exception; internal party education should be institutionalized as an ideological imperative; municipalities should not lead the party, but the party should lead the municipalities. Social democracy must be redefined on the basis of labor, class, equality and public ownership; neoliberal politics of harmony must be abandoned. Either the CHP makes this confrontation of its own volition or this confrontation will be imposed with a much heavier historical defeat. There is no other third way.