As the CHP readies for two party congresses to be held in a few weeks, another conflict arose in the party when the CHP administration, which supports party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, refused to inform local party delegates on the election process and where the ballot boxes will stationed for this election. İstanbul is where the CHP has most of its delegates and it is where the intra-party CHP opponents come across such problems when casting their votes. Over 100 local CHP delegates and some party congress delegates from İstanbul’s Kağıthane district told Today’s Zaman on Tuesday that they will go on hunger strike if the CHP provincial party administration does not place ballot boxes in every single neighborhood, as it should.
An extraordinary party congress attendee told Today’s Zaman that intra-party CHP opponents are giving the administration until Friday to put ballot boxes in every neighborhood and that if they do not, delegates state they will start a hunger strike at İstanbul’s Taksim Square and Kadıköy Square.
The conflict in local party branches and between delegates was also a large issue in former CHP leader Deniz Baykal’s time. Baykal’s Secretary-General Önder Sav is known for appointing delegates at local party branches according to his own preference and for preventing ballot boxes from being placed in all neighborhoods. On the other hand, when Kılıçdaroğlu became party leader, he said: “We will leave all our old traditions and personnel rivalry behind. We will continue our way with respect to all our party members. We will place ballot boxes and whoever wins will help the ones who lost in the election.”
However, this promise seems to have faded as intra-party opponents from around the country, especially metropolitan cities, are now claiming that opposition within the party is being silenced by the Kılıçdaroğlu administration. One of the most recent examples of this issue was seen in Kağıthane’s Nurtepe region, where 55-year-old female party member Emine Çelik, who had been part of the party’s local administration over the past years, asked the CHP provincial administration when and where the ballot boxes for the local party elections will be stationed. It is claimed that, the CHP’s Kağıthane branch head, Gökhan Pektaş, told Çelik, “How could you benefit the party at this age even if you became a delegate.”
It is also claimed by party opponents that no ballot boxes have been placed in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu district. “They secretly put ballot boxes in cars. What is this? They want the delegates to not be able to find the ballot boxes,” a party member from Beyoğlu said.
A former CHP provincial head, who wished to remain anonymous, told Today’s Zaman that “we wanted a democratic election. We wanted Mr. Kemal [Kılıçdaroğlu] to keep his promise. How could they hide the ballot boxes? Later, they say ‘We placed a ballot box, didn’t you see it?’ So 3,500 people is İstanbul have not seen the boxes? We have given them time and if they do not show us the ballot boxes, we will go on hunger strike. I guess then how serious we are will be understood.”
