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Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of CHP re-elected in extraordinary congress, on Friday.

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KILICDAROGLU-GALIPLeader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was re-elected in an extraordinary congress of the party on Friday.

Leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who dismissed claims that the party is leaning towards the right, emerged victorious in an extraordinary congress of the party on Friday. Kılıçdaroğlu was reelected chairman of the CHP by obtaining 740 of the votes cast. A total of 1,181 party delegates voted at the party’s 18th extraordinary congress in Ankara.

Kılıçdaroğlu was nominated as chairman with 944 out of a total of 1,218 delegates, while Muharrem İnce, a CHP deputy and Kılıçdaroğlu’s rival for chairmanship, surprisingly got 415 of the votes. Ahead of the congress, İnce was only nominated as chairman by 177 delegates. This indicates that some of the delegates who offered support for Kılıçdaroğlu in his nomination actually voted for İnce.

The CHP leader sharply dismissed claims about the party leaning towards the right in recent years by explaining the party’s attitude on a number of issues. The claims about the CHP leaning towards the right in the political spectrum are also a result of the nomination of a significant number of center-right candidates by the main opposition party at the local election held at the end of March. But Kılıçdaroğlu adamantly defended at the congress in Ankara the party’s position saying, “Respecting identity is not [to be described as] leaning to the right.” Kılıçdaroğlu also said: “Has the CHP leaned to the right? There is no such thing! The CHP will stand where it stood based on its historical mission, but it will continue by progressing,” he emphasized.

The CHP leader also complained about elitists in the party, whom he criticized for trying to save the country while drinking alcohol with friends. “I will eliminate them from the party. I need people who will work in the field,” he said.

CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu had recently said during a television program: “Following the extraordinary congress, we will not tolerate those who make contrarian and subversive statements that contradict the decision-making bodies within the party. But this should not be understood as the elimination of opposing views. We have always supported pluralism and valued different opinions. What I mean here is entirely something else.”

Ahead of the presidential election last month, some dissident deputies in the CHP had publicly denounced the nomination of İhsanoğlu, who lost to the AK Party candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as the candidate of the party. Some CHP deputies tried to nominate another CHP deputy, Emine Ülker Tarhan, as an alternative presidential candidate, but their efforts failed as they were unable to get the support of a total of 20 deputies in Parliament, which is needed to present a person as a nominee in the presidential race

The main opposition party has been unsuccessful in winning power in the past 12 years against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

On the other hand İnce underlined in his speech that Kılıçdaroğlu, as opposed to the period when Kılıçdaroğlu first became chairman of the party, no longer provides any hope to the public that the CHP may come to power. İnce expressed his revolt for the incapacity of the CHP to defeat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he described as an ignorant person who has often put his foot in his mouth. İnce also expressed his misgivings about those who enrolled in the party in recent months saying, “People who don’t accept the principles of our party can’t walk together to the future.” He emphasized in his speech that the CHP could win elections by sticking to their traditional values such as Kemalism and social democracy and by having faith in one’s own resources.

İnce also criticized Kılıçdaroğlu’s decision to nominate a presidential candidate who is known to be a person of conservative values, saying: “If the party that established the republic cannot nominate a [presidential] candidate from among its own ranks, shame [on the party]! Yes to trying to win over the right-wing voters, yes to enrolling new [political] figures to the party; but no to giving up our own principles, to discrediting our own values.”

On the second day of the extraordinary congress on Saturday, the party council will be elected and some amendments to the party bylaw are expected to be made.

SOURCE: MEDIA

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