By Huseyin Hayatsever
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will name its presidential candidate for the next election in coming months, its leader said on Tuesday in what he called a move to counter a judicial crackdown on his party.
The next presidential and parliamentary elections are not scheduled until 2028, but the opposition has repeatedly called for an early vote after recent detentions and investigations into CHP-run municipalities.
“Today, … by completing all the preparations … in February, March and April, we are starting today to say that we are ready to (counter) this evil,” Ozgur Ozel said in an address to CHP parliamentarians, alluding to the investigations.
Some 1.6 million CHP members will choose the party’s presidential candidate in an internal vote, he added.
On Monday, an Istanbul prosecutor launched another judicial investigation into the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a CHP member, for allegedly trying to influence the judiciary after he criticised legal inquiries into opposition-run municipalities.
Imamoglu, seen as a likely future presidential challenger to Tayyip Erdogan, accused Erdogan’s government of using the judiciary as a political tool to pressure the opposition.
Ozel said the investigations into Imamoglu showed how Erdogan’s AK Party was afraid of him.
The government denies accusations of political interference in the cases and says the judiciary is independent.
Erdogan, re-elected last year, is serving his last term as president permitted by the constitution, unless parliament calls an early election. He has ruled Turkey for more than 21 years, first as prime minister and then as president.
An early election needs the support of 360 MPs in the 600-seat parliament. AKP and its allies command 321 seats.
The AKP spokesperson recently said that a formula for a new term for Erdogan was “on the party’s agenda,” hinting at a move to enact a constitutional amendment to make that possible.
A constitutional amendment could also be put to a referendum if 360 lawmakers endorsed it.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; editing by Ece Toksabay and Mark Heinrich)
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