The CHP delegate!

Sometimes you have to speak straight from the heart of the matter.

Kılıçdaroğlu must have thought that he hadn't properly fulfilled his mission of keeping Tayyip Erdoğan in power, so when he dug his heels back into the leadership of the CHP by claiming "absolute nullity," all hell broke loose.

We listen to the same old tune morning and night on news channels that consider themselves "opposition" but are secretly carrying water for the Palace.

We go to sleep with Kılıçdaroğlu, Özgür Özel, absolute nullity, a new party, the party congress, operations against CHP municipalities, and so on... We wake up to the same thing!

They are manipulating the country's agenda exactly as the Palace wants. As if we had no other worries or troubles.

They have made the people of my country weary of the news cycle.

Ultimately, you don't need to be an expert in political sociology to guess who benefits from this.

But let's look at the issue from another angle.

Özgür Özel was burning bridges with Kılıçdaroğlu in words and pushing for a party congress; I, for one, have remained fixated on this side of the issue.

Let's ask without beating around the bush:

At the stage we have reached today, do the delegates who voted in those congresses have no responsibility at all?

This is where the rubber meets the road!

Ultimately, the fact that they changed the Chairman after the recent general election defeat does not absolve them of their sins from the past years.

If the delegates had not anchored Kılıçdaroğlu to that seat with record votes at every congress, today neither could "absolute nullity" debates hold the political agenda hostage, nor could a will for chairmanship that remained unshaken despite losing 13 elections have been built.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Turkish politics is once again in a familiar vortex.

In this theater of return, which nine out of every ten citizens on the street watch with reaction, bewilderment, and anger, the arrows have naturally turned toward Kılıçdaroğlu.

"You lost 13 elections, what is this ambition for?" and so on...

However, no one has any intention of flipping the coin, parting the curtains of those magnificent Ankara halls, and facing the real culprits!

Both political science and rational thought tell us that a leader cannot sit in that seat for even a single day without an organized and relentless delegate will behind them.

In other words, the question that people criticizing Kılıçdaroğlu should really be asking is: "Why did the CHP delegates not remove Kılıçdaroğlu from his seat for all those years, despite all his failures?"

Let's refresh our memory and take a closer look at the history of CHP congresses—one of the most protected, sterile, and socially detached structures in Turkish political history—that is, the archive of the delegate's loyalty.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s "invincible" seating order was built in the congress halls that gathered immediately after the defeats at the ballot box, with the votes cast by those sacred delegates as they placed their hands on their hearts (or due to other calculations).

While the people of my country were screaming for change outside, the congress delegates were giving life to the status quo with their votes inside:

July 17-18, 2012, 34th Ordinary Congress:

Kılıçdaroğlu, who moved forward with the claim of pulling the party together after the Deniz Baykal era, staged a show of strength at this congress, which was held immediately after the general election defeat. In the hall where 1,282 registered delegates had the right to vote, he received all 1,164 valid votes, showing off his power as the sole candidate. The street was bewildered, but the delegate was extremely satisfied with the situation.

September 5-6, 2014, 18th Extraordinary Congress:

The failure of the Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu formula in the 2014 Presidential elections triggered the first serious rebellion within the party. Muharrem İnce raised the flag and stood against Kılıçdaroğlu. While the wind of İnce was blowing in society, the fortifications in the delegate rooms had already been built. While Kılıçdaroğlu protected his seat by receiving 740 votes, Muharrem İnce remained at 415 votes. The delegate chose to turn a deaf ear to the storm outside.

January 16-17, 2016, 35th Ordinary Congress:

Following the June 7 and November 1, 2015 elections, one of the most critical turning points in Turkish history had been passed, and the CHP was once again condemned to the main opposition benches. The intra-party opposition wanted to try its luck once more, but names like Mustafa Balbay could not even find the necessary delegate signatures. Kılıçdaroğlu, who entered the election as the sole candidate, registered his leadership for the fourth time by receiving 990 of the 1,225 delegates' votes.

February 3-4, 2018, 36th Ordinary Congress:

The congress, which gathered at the Ankara Sports Hall with the theme of "Justice and Courage," was perhaps the clearest document of the delegate-public disconnect. Muharrem İnce tried his luck once again. While the street, the squares, and the party base were holding their breath for change, 790 of the congress delegates chose Kılıçdaroğlu again. İnce, on the other hand, remained at 447 votes and could not pass the hall threshold.

July 25-26, 2020, 37th Ordinary Congress:

In this congress held at the Bilkent Odeon under the shadow of the pandemic, names like İlhan Cihaner and Aytuğ Atıcı could not even cross the delegate wall to become candidates. Kılıçdaroğlu was re-elected as chairman with record support, receiving 1,251 of the 1,318 delegates who voted. While the person on the street was struggling with economic crisis and political deadlock, the delegate structure was offering its chairman a thornless rose garden.

November 4-5, 2023, 38th Ordinary Congress:

This congress, which gathered after the historic presidential and general election defeat in May 2023, was the point where the spear could no longer fit into the sack. The delegate finally experienced a breakdown. In the first round, Özgür Özel received 682 votes and Kılıçdaroğlu 664, and an absolute majority could not be achieved. In the second round, Özgür Özel became the party's new chairman by receiving 812 votes, while Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu remained at 536 votes.

But pay attention; even after the party's heaviest defeat, 536 delegates were still able to loyally vote for a leader who had lost 13 elections and missed a vital election like the presidency!

The figures above are not whispering to us; they are practically screaming. But who is listening!!!

Instead of going home and resting after every election defeat, Kılıçdaroğlu fortified the delegate mechanism with flawless engineering in the corridors of the party's headquarters in Ankara. That delegate chain, extending from provincial congresses to congress halls, was turned into a life form indexed to the parliamentary seats, mayoral candidacies, party assembly memberships, and small or large municipal tenders that the chairman would bestow.

In periods when the citizen on the street was crying out, "Enough is enough, change this leader," the wind of official cars, delegate treats, and political career guarantees was blowing in those congress halls.

While the voter was shedding tears at the ballot box, the delegate was carrying Kılıçdaroğlu on their shoulders, shouting victory cries at the congress.

Therefore, the sole power behind Kılıçdaroğlu's audacity today to calculate a return to his seat with "absolute nullity" formulas leaking from courthouse doors or by forcing legal loopholes is the delegate structure that provided him with this comfort zone for years.

Let's underline this with a thick pen several times so we don't forget it.

Today, the people of my country are rightly asking, "What kind of ambition for a seat is this?" but the addressee of this question is not just Kılıçdaroğlu. The real addressee is those hundreds of lucky delegates who came to that hall in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020—that is, after every defeat—and signed by saying "We continue on our way with our chairman," and entered the voting booth to stamp the compass of the status quo.

If a party's congress delegate can remain so blind, deaf, and dumb to the voice of the street, the cry of the voter, and the bitter truths of the ballot box, the politics produced there has no chance of being a hope for society anyway.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s never-ending appetite for chairmanship today is, rather than his own personal ambition, a natural result of that blind loyalty accounting that has been woven into the genetics of the party and nurtured by the hands of the delegates.

If a real cleansing and change are desired on the political stage, the reckoning must start not only with the leader but with the delegate will that nailed that leader to that seat with record votes.

To think otherwise would just be fooling ourselves, and with that, let's put a period to our article.