'Among the leftists who aged while still very young': That article about CHP Secretary General Rıfat Turuntay Nalbantoğlu is back on the agenda
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who became the CHP Chairman again following a court ruling of absolute nullity, announced his Central Executive Board (MYK) list the other day. While eyes turned to the names on the list, the choice of Rıfat Turuntay Nalbantoğlu as Secretary General drew attention. Following this development, old articles and news reports regarding Nalbantoğlu have returned to the agenda.
12punto
Nalbantoğlu, who continues his political work within the Republican People's Party (CHP) and has served as a member of the Party Assembly, is a figure who has also undertaken the role of İzmir Provincial Chairman. Having taken on various responsibilities in party organizations throughout his political career, Rıfat Turuntay Nalbantoğlu was elected as an İzmir deputy in the 2023 Turkish general elections.
During the party congress and leadership crises experienced in the CHP in the 2025-2026 period, Nalbantoğlu's name was frequently mentioned in intra-party debates. Nalbantoğlu's meeting with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu while the judicial and congress process in the CHP was ongoing, and his statement that "We are behind our Chairman to the end," drew reactions from the pro-Özgür Özel and pro-İmamoğlu factions within the party.
Making his first assessment after taking office, Nalbantoğlu gave a message of joint struggle to solve the CHP's current problems. Emphasizing party unity and solidarity in his statement, Nalbantoğlu stated that it was not important whether one took a role in the MYK or not, saying, "Our duty is to produce solutions to the current pressing problems of our party and to work tirelessly and without fatigue."
Expressing that he is aware of his responsibilities as Secretary General, Nalbantoğlu said that they would work together with all party members, especially Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
Giving a clear message regarding the congress debates, Nalbantoğlu made a notable statement regarding the internal party discussions, saying, "A congress cannot be held while there is a precautionary injunction in place."
The fact that Nalbantoğlu was one of the names who did not support the call for an extraordinary congress signed by 111 deputies in the CHP created intense debate on social media.
Following the congress where Kılıçdaroğlu handed over the Chairmanship to Özgür Özel, Rıfat Turuntay Nalbantoğlu, who continued his support for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu at every opportunity, has seen old articles about him return to the agenda with his appointment as the party's Secretary General after the absolute nullity ruling.
The findings made about Nalbantoğlu in a 2024 article titled 'Our Dorian Gray 'deputies' and the lack of a novel', written by 12punto.com.tr columnist Osman Çutsay on the website biryenicumhuriyet.com.tr, are extremely remarkable...
In a part of his article, Çutsay said the following about Nalbantoğlu:
"...I am talking about three former leftists whom I could get to know, at least partially, in their sunny twenties. These are among the leftists who aged while still very young. They are three -unfortunately- reactionary “deputies” whose novels I would argue cannot be written, but I also know that new miracle writers who will appear on the scene could throw this claim into the trash in an instant. We are facing biographies that push Turkey backward and into the trash in the name of the left...
I had met the poor and radiant Sırrı in the corridors of the Ankara Faculty of Political Sciences (SBF) when he was perhaps only 19. It must have been 1980. It is possible. However, Rıfat was more important in 1979. He was not alone. Rıfat was leading the İGD members at SBF. Both names went through the tortures of September 12 and the capital state when they were very young. Erkan Baş, who always gives me a kind of “Ahmet Kaçmaz profile,” is from a later generation; when we look, he grew up under the protection of Sırrı and Rıfat. Like them, he denied the movement he emerged from, but I think he managed to be more harmful to the “place where he grew up” than the other two. He managed to do exactly what he wanted. He became a deputy. All three are still deputies.
All three are marketers, and they managed to make this count as being leftist. Our question and our problem is not why they are reactionary. We are talking about the fact that the system they have seen and experienced no longer possesses a literature that can describe them. They are the heroes of a great shallowness, a dirty vulgarity: If they have any romanesque sides, it is from here, but they cannot be narrated. Why?"