As I began writing this article, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was holding an extraordinary convention. In a lengthy speech, CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu fought against accusations from the in-house opposition that the center-left CHP was “shifting to the right.” At one point, he made quite an interesting remark: “They say the CHP is an elitist party. I have respect for the elites; they are enlightened people. But there are some elitists who are trying to save Turkey at the raki tables. Let it be perfectly clear to anyone: I will purge those people from the party.”
Kilicdaroglu’s comments — by which he meant party members who only rail about Turkey’s problems with no real effort to reach out to the people — quickly reverberated. His rebuke about “saving Turkey at the raki tables” was seen as a sign that the CHP is changing, with some condemning it and others silently taking note.
