After a painful defeat in recent elections, Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) late Saturday elected a new leader, ending a 13-year term for incumbent Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Gercek News reported.
Kilicdaroglu had suffered a dramatic defeat in the presidential race, greatly unexpected and disappointing for his supporters because of the severe economic crisis many believed would make it impossible for his rival Recep Tayyip Erdogan to get reelected. CHP in the parliamentary election also performed much worse than expected. Kilicdaroglu refused to step down after the elections, saying it was not CHP but the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that lost because AKP received significantly less votes compared to the previous election.
The party's congress handed the leadership to Ozgur Ozel as he received 812 of 1,366 possible votes at the second round of the voting.
Ozel, 49, has been a lawmaker since 2011, and was serving as the CHP's parliamentary group chair before the congress. He announced his candidacy in September.
He will now lead the CHP into local elections in March 2024, where the party hopes to keep hold of the key municipalities it won in 2019, including the capital Ankara, Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, and some other major cities.