Standoff in Turkey’s main opposition party escalates

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Standoff in Turkey’s main opposition party escalates

2026-05-23 02:32 Last Updated At：02:41

ISTANBUL (AP) — A standoff between the chairman of Turkey’s main opposition party and his predecessor, who was reappointed by court order, escalated Friday.

An appeals court in the capital of Ankara on Thursday nullified the November 2023 party congress of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP. At the congress, Ozgur Ozel was elected to replace then-chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The appeals court’s decision suspended Ozel and members of the party’s executive board from their duties. They will be “provisionally” replaced by Kilicdaroglu and those who held office before the November 2023 congress.

The opposition claims the decision was politically motivated.

Last year, a lower court ruled against claims of irregularities and misconduct surrounding Ozel’s election but Thursday’s decision overturned the original verdict.

The government defended the case against the CHP, arguing the allegations of corruption during the party congress come from party members. They included most notably former Antakya Mayor Lutfu Savas, who was expelled from the party over disciplinary issues in December 2024 and filed the case to overturn the November 2023 party congress two months later.

The CHP immediately appealed Thursday’s ruling, which was rejected by the court Friday. An appeal to the Supreme Election Council was similarly rejected in the evening, but an appeal to the Supreme Court by Ozel was accepted.

On Friday, Kilicdaroglu removed the three CHP lawyers who had filed the appeal, and local media reported that he had already begun calling former colleagues to establish his own executive board. Local media also reported that he had changed his profile on X from “7th chairman of the CHP” to “chairman of the CHP.”

The 77-year-old Kilicdaroglu left the post following a 13-year tenure as leader, during which the CHP failed to win any national elections. Meanwhile, Ozel, in his first election following the chairmanship, delivered a decisive blow against Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party during the 2024 municipal elections.

Thursday’s ruling dealt a serious blow to the beleaguered CHP as it struggles under waves of legal cases targeting its members and elected officials.

The next presidential election is due in 2028 but Erdogan can call for an early vote. His main challenger, the CHP Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, has been imprisoned since March last year and is on trial on corruption charges.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek, who oversaw several cases against the CHP in his former role as Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, described the court’s ruling as one that “reinforces our citizens’ trust in democracy.”

Many observers have said the legal cases against the CHP — mostly centered on corruption allegations — are politically motivated and aimed at neutralizing the party ahead of the next election. The government, however, insists that Turkey’s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.

Erdogan has ruled Turkey, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2003. His electoral record suffered a setback in 2019 when the CHP seized control of several major cities in local elections. In Istanbul, Imamoglu emerged as a popular and charismatic figure who many felt could successfully topple Erdogan.

Serbian protesters clash with police after anti-government rally in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Clashes erupted between groups of protesters and riot police after a huge anti-government rally on Saturday in the Serbian capital Belgrade by tens of thousands of opponents of the country's autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic

While the rally at a central square in Belgrade passed peacefully, groups of young demonstrators later clashed with riot police, throwing flares, rocks and bottles at police cordons, who responded with pepper spray as they charged forward to disperse them.

The groups, including apparent soccer hooligans, rolled trash cans into the streets as shield-carrying riot police tried to surround them. Police parked anti-riot vehicles in a central Belgrade area to block the demonstrators from returning and the violence soon ended.

Crowds of protesters earlier on Saturday streamed into central Belgrade, many carrying banners and wearing T-shirts inscribed with the “Students win” motto of the youth movement. Columns of cars drove into Belgrade from other Serbian towns earlier in the day.

Vucic has sought to curb the mass demonstrations that have shaken his hard-line rule in the Balkan country. Big crowds on Saturday suggested the dissent persists more than a year after protests first started to demand accountability for a train station tragedy in Serbia’s north in November 2024 that killed 16 people.

Vucic said in a video on Instagram on Saturday that protesters “have shown their violent nature and that they cannot stand political opponents.” He added from a plane as he headed on a state visit to China that “the state is functioning and will continue to work in line with the law.”

Anti-corruption protests forced then-Prime Minister Milos Vucevic to resign in January 2025 before authorities pushed back hard against the protesters. Many people in Serbia blamed the concrete canopy crash at the station on alleged graft-fueled negligence during the renovation work on the building carried out with Chinese companies.

The students on Saturday demanded an early election and the rule of law, accusing the government of crime and corruption.

Prosecutor Bojana Savovic told the crowd that “a state where laws are not implemented or are implemented selectively is no longer a state, it becomes a mafia organization.”

Parliament speaker Ana Brnabic downplayed the student rally, saying “it offered nothing new.” Brnabic cited a police estimate that 34,300 people came to the rally and said “democracy is flourishing.”

Clashes first erupted in the vicinity of a park camp of Vucic's loyalists outside the Serbian presidency building that he set up ahead of another big anti-government rally last March as a human shield against protesters. Folk music blared from a fenced area surrounded by rows of riot police in full gear.

Serbia’s state railway company on Saturday canceled all trains to and from Belgrade, in an apparent bid to stop at least some people from coming from other parts of the country.

The Serbian president has faced international scrutiny for his hard-line tactics against the demonstrators in the past year, including arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, criticized Serbia’s government in a report this week and said he “will monitor the situation closely” on Saturday.

O’Flaherty also cited “reports of police protecting unidentified and often masked attackers of journalists and protesters.” He said the overall rights situation has deteriorated since his previous visit in April 2025.

Serbia is formally seeking European Union entry but it has nourished close ties with Russia and China. The democratic backsliding under Vucic could cost the country around 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in European Union funding, the EU’s top enlargement official warned last month.

The venue on Saturday was Belgrade’s Slavija Square, the scene of a huge anti-government protest in March 2025. That rally ended in sudden disruption that experts later said — and the government denied — involved the use of a sonic weapon against peaceful demonstrators.

The youth movement’s quest for justice and rule of law has resonated widely among Serbia’s citizens, who are disillusioned with established politicians after decades of perpetual crisis.

Students now say they plan to challenge Vucic at the approaching elections that they hope will oust the right-wing populist government. Vucic said this week that the ballot could be held between September and November this year.

Vucic, government officials and the pro-government media have branded critics as foreign agents who wish to destroy the country — rhetoric that has ramped up political polarization.

Protester Maja Milas Markovic said students “managed to gather us here with their youth and wonderful energy; I really believe that we have right to live normally.”

Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.