Turkey’s main opposition – the Republican People’s Party (CHP) – fears that the country’s authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is planning snap elections to sidestep constitutional limits on his power and secure another term as president.
CHP sources told Euractiv that judicial interference in the opposition’s leadership race forms part of Erdoğan’s strategy to trigger elections that would bypass constitutional limits blocking him from a third presidential term.
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“It is a huge signal that Erdoğan is going for a snap election,” said senior CHP figures. “He is crippling the main opposition.”
The Turkish political landscape has been in turmoil since a court ruling on 21 May reinstated a former presidential candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as the CHP’s leader.
The CHP, affiliated with the Party of European Socialists, supports a secular state against Erdoğan’s religious conservatism. The party alleges that the court decision was politically motivated under pressure from the Turkish president, and his AKP party, to incapacitate the opposition.
At a CHP congress in November 2023, rival Özgur Özel had defeated Kılıçdaroğlu for the leadership after the latter lost to Erdoğan in in May 2023 presidential elections.
Overriding the decision, an Ankara court annulled the party congress and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu as CHP leader. In March 2025, CHP presidential hopeful and Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was arrested, triggering mass protests. Prosecutors are seeking a cumulative prison sentence of 2,430 years on charges including “establishing a criminal organisation”.
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Kılıçdaroğlu said this week the party will hold a congress to meet legal conditions triggering splits. After Özel and other CHP members refused to hand over the party headquarters in Ankara to Kılıçdaroğlu, riot police stormed the building.
“Political opposition must be free to operate, organise, and participate in the political process without fear of repression,” the EU said in a statement.
The constitutional loophole
The aggressive measures against the largest opposition party are seen by the opposition as a sign of Erdoğan’s nervousness.
Under the regular electoral calendar, parliamentary and presidential elections must be held no later than May 2028. According to Turkey’s constitution, Erdoğan cannot run for a third term unless he changes the constitution – or calls for a snap election. But for that the Turkish parliament must approve it and he needs the backing of 360 MPs in the 600-seat assembly.
Practically, this means that he will need opposition votes as well. There is wide speculation in Ankara that Erdoğan’s AKP could likely find these votes.
Political pollsters currently see the CHP slightly ahead of the ruling AKP. The opposition believe the lead could widen. One reason is the bleak economic outlook, as economists noted the Turkish central governments budged posted a deficit of TRY 338.7 billion (approximately €6.3 billion) in April 2026, “almost doubling from TRY 174.7 billion a year earlier as expenditure growth outpaced revenues.”
The constraints limit Erdoğan’s room for “populist spending” ahead of elections, CHP sources say.
CHP figures are concerned that the EU will ultimately go along with Erdoğan’s plan.
However, the EU is divided over the future place of Turkey in Europe.
While Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, in April grouped Turkey alongside Russia and China as sources of negative influence, countries such as Spain and Belgium increasingly see Ankara as central to Europe’s defence architecture. Erdoğan is set to host NATO summit in July.
“They will come to the summit in Ankara in July, shake his hands and not say a word about it,” a CHP source said.
See the original of this report by Björn Stritzel here.
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