ANKARA: Turkiye’s foremost opposition Republican Individuals’s Get together, also called CHP, on Sunday elected Ozgur Ozel as its new chief, ending a 13-year time period for incumbent Kemal Kilicdaroglu, because the nation gears up for native elections subsequent March.
Ozel, 49, has been serving because the CHP’s deputy parliamentary group chairman since 2015 and has been a lawmaker since 2011. He introduced his candidacy in September, after Kilicdaroglu and the CHP’s painful defeat to President Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling political alliance in Could presidential and basic elections.
Ozel, a pharmacist by commerce, obtained 812 of 1,366 attainable votes at a tense, hours-long get together congress in Ankara that took two rounds.
“That is the best honor of my life,” Ozel stated after the outcomes had been introduced, whereas thanking Kilicdaroglu for his work on the get together. “We’re embarking on the street for native election victory,” he added.
“We’ve believed in turning hopelessness into hope, we’re hopeful,” Ozel stated, surrounded by applauding get together members and standing alongside Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Imamoglu supported Ozel in a push for change on the CHP that has lengthy been slowed down by in-fighting. After profitable the 2019 municipal elections in Istanbul and ending Erdogan’s years-long maintain over town, Imamoglu was seen as a possible new chief for the get together and challenger for the presidency.
Nonetheless, Kilicdaroglu selected to run himself in opposition to Erdogan within the Could elections, regardless of a number of earlier losses. After the vote, he got here underneath hearth for refusing to step down because the chief of the CHP, established by trendy Turkiye’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
“I carried our Nice Chief Ataturk’s legacy with honor till right now,” Kilicdaroglu stated on social messaging platform X after the outcomes, and congratulated Ozel. “And right now, with the choice our congress delegates made, I say goodbye to the submit of chairman.”