2 days after resignation, Baykal’s possible comeback tops agenda

    The outgoing leader's farewell speech included strong hints that he will seek any opportunity to be re-elected as the party's head. He said he was ready to undertake any duty his party charges him with. However, most observers believe Baykal has little chance of doing so if his resignation is part of a plan to restructure the CHP.

    A video clip posted online last week that allegedly shows Baykal intimately involved with CHP Ankara deputy Nesrin Baytok spurred the longtime CHP leader to resign from his position. The scandalous video sparked unease within the main opposition party, with Baykal's close supporters reportedly pressuring him to quit. Baykal heeded those calls and announced on Monday that he had decided to step down from his position. Both Baykal and Baytok are married.

    Only hours after Baykal's resignation, many CHP provincial branches started grassroots signature campaigns to show their support for their outgoing leader. The party's delegations hope to re-elect Baykal as the party's leader at the upcoming congress. Baykal is reportedly unwilling to run as a candidate at the congress.

The CHP delegate structure leaves almost no chance for any other candidate to be elected as the new party leader. Almost all of the party delegates are Baykal sympathizers, and Baykal’s rivals have failed in the past several congresses to dethrone him. The CHP grass roots is, on the other hand, known to be uneasy with the delegate structure. Similarly, the Turkish left has been engaged in a search for a new spirit for left-wing politics in the country, away from the statist policy the CHP advocated under Baykal’s reign.

The main opposition party is set to hold its national congress on May 22. CHP officials said on Monday that Baykal is not considering attending the congress.

According to internal party rumors, CHP delegates would elect Baykal as the party’s leader in absentia if the outgoing leader refuses to attend the congress. Baykal, in response, would then decide to return to his past position “at the strong demand of his party.”

Some CHP members, however, believe Baykal will not return to his position. Under a second rumored scenario, he would have one of his close supporters elected as the new party leader at the upcoming congress. This new CHP leader would probably be Hakkı Süha Okay, one of the party’s parliamentary group deputy chairman. Okay will leave his seat to Baykal in 2011 before the parliamentary elections, scheduled for July of next year, under to this scenario.

The CHP is currently being led by the party’s Deputy Chairman Cevdet Selvi.

A third scenario, however, posits that Baykal will not step in as the party’s leader unless full light is shed on the video clip scandal. This scenario outlines a plan for the CHP to elect a new leader with Baykal remaining as the party’s leader “behind the scenes.”

Baykal not only put his party in ambiguity ahead of the upcoming congress but also sparked political tension with his resignation, which he blamed on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). He said he was the victim of a political plot by the government and suggested that the ruling party must have had knowledge of the video clip.

In response, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the chairman of the AK Party, called a press conference to lash out at Baykal for his attempt to implicate the AK Party in the video scandal, calling the outgoing leader’s remarks “as cheap and ugly as the video itself.” “The capture, publication and promotion of such footage have nothing to do with our party’s principles and moral values. This is not something we can tolerate, either,” he remarked, and criticized the CHP for abusing his party’s goodwill. He said Baykal’s efforts to blame the AK Party for the scandal surprised him.

“Once my friends informed me about the incident, I ordered the transportation minister to do what was necessary to block the circulation of the video on the Internet. We could not have remained silent in the face of such footage, which may damage society’s moral values,” the prime minister stated.

Erdoğan also said the outgoing CHP leader’s statement was a result of the trauma he has suffered and called on Baykal to cease his attempts to implicate the AK Party in the scandal. “Our public will have the final say on the incident. I am calling on everyone to act with common sense,” he added.

Kılıçdaroğlu in dilemma

All eyes are now on CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to see whether he will announce his candidacy for party leadership before the CHP national congress. According Kılıçdaroğlu’s close circle, he does not think it would be appropriate to campaign to be the new CHP leader so soon after Baykal’s resignation. However, a certain media group in Turkey has been promoting Kılıçdaroğlu as the new CHP head for quite some time.

Kılıçdaroğlu ran for İstanbul mayor in the March 2009 local polls, but lost to the AK Party’s incumbent Kadir Topbaş. Many claimed at the time that Kılıçdaroğlu’s aspiration to become İstanbul mayor was a plan by Baykal to postpone his plans to challenge him at the CHP national congress. In the meantime, there are claims that CHP İstanbul provincial chairman Gürsel Tekin also hopes to be elected as the new party head. He reportedly asked Kılıçdaroğlu about his final decision on running and said, “I will stand as a candidate if you refuse to do so.”

Others have also indicated their willingness to take the helm of the CHP. Among these are Samsun deputy Haluk Koç, İstanbul deputy Ali Topuz, Tekirdağ deputy Faik Öztrak and writer-musician-film director Zülfü Livaneli.

Koç said he would work to fulfill the responsibility of the party chairman in the best possible manner. Umut Oran, a businessman who stood as a nominee for the CHP leadership in the party’s general assembly in 2008, said Baykal should close all doors that may lead him back to party leadership and suggested that he should be nominated as the CHP’s honorary leader.

Baykal’s resignation is not a first for the CHP. In the 1999 elections, the CHP was for the first time knocked out of Parliament. Baykal resigned after the election results were announced but was voted in as CHP chairperson once again on Sept. 30, 2000, at the party’s 11th extraordinary party congress.