Between the “Left-Wing Tradition” and the “Middle Way”: The Evolution of the Republican People’s Party’s Political Identity (2002–2023)

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) is the oldest political party in Turkey. Over nearly a century of political change, its political positioning has undergone a profound transformation. The 2002 Turkish general election marked the beginning of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) era of single-party rule and plunged the CHP into a deep identity crisis: bearing the historical legacy of Kemalism while inheriting the “democratic left” tradition of the 1970s, the party was forced to seek a competitive position in a political landscape reshaped by Islamic conservatism and authoritarian populism. Over more than two decades from 2002 to 2023, the CHP’s identity displayed marked vacillation: it repeatedly swung between adhering to tradition and embracing the middle way, while remaining locked in a sustained tug-of-war between upholding Kemalist orthodoxy and renewing a social democratic agenda. This vacillation stemmed both from the constraints of Turkey’s particular political ecology and from the party’s strategic choice, as the main opposition party under authoritarian pressure, to ensure its survival. It was not until the defeat in the 2023 presidential election and the leadership turnover at the party congress that this two-decade-long identity entanglement reached a critical juncture. During the Baykal and Kılıçdaroğlu periods, the CHP’s composite left-wing index stagnated at around 2.2 points on a five-point scale, far below the benchmark levels of European social democratic parties. When Özgür Özel was elected party chairman in November 2023, he put forward a vision of returning to the democratic left.