Turkey’s political opposition dug in on Friday to resist an unprecedented court ruling that ousted its leader and annulled its congress, inflaming a political crisis that critics say aims to further prolong President Tayyip Erdogan’s 23-year rule.

The appeals court cited unspecified irregularities in the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 congress. It also reinstated the CHP’s former chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu – a divisive figure who lost to Erdogan in elections earlier that year – in place of current leader Ozgur Ozel.

The case is widely seen as a politically motivated attempt to hobble the CHP, and a plot by the ruling party to choose an opposition leader who best suits its interests. Analysts said it was the continuation of the process that began with arrests a year ago.

The CHP condemned the ruling as a “judicial coup” and Ozel vowed to fight it through legal appeals and to personally remain “day and night” in the main opposition party’s headquarters in Ankara.

An Ankara court on Friday rejected an appeal by CHP.

The CHP has appealed also to a higher court, as well as the Supreme Election Board (YSK), but no rulings have yet been made on those. The ousting of CHP Chairman Ozgur Ozel has inflamed a political crisis and rattled markets.

Though the YSK oversees all elections and party congresses and its decisions are not subject to appeal, the court issued its ruling citing a law on associations – an unprecedented move in modern Turkey.

The YSK convened on Friday to discuss the CHP application.

Democratic test

“We knew this was where Erdogan was headed, and yet this is an unprecedented assault on whatever has remained of the democratic space,” Gonul Tol of the Washington-based Middle East Institute told AFP.

“It is basically re-engineering the opposition, just like how Putin has shaped a loyal opposition. That’s where we are going, it’s unprecedented,” she said.

Political analyst Berk Esen said trying to change the opposition’s leadership through the courts was “unprecedented”, warning that accepting Kilicdaroglu as leader would effectively be “a compromise with the regime”.

The case was seen as a test of Turkey’s shaky balance between democracy and autocracy, and the ruling could rekindle anti-Erdogan protests. It could also spark opposition infighting that boosts Erdogan’s chances of extending his rule in Turkey, a large NATO member country and emerging market economy.

Turkish assets sold off in the face of the latest political crisis and the lira touched a record low, prompting the central bank to sell billions of dollars in foreign reserves to maintain stability.

Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, speaking in Istanbul on Friday, shrugged off what he called “daily developments” in the markets, saying Turkey would continue to decisively implement its economic programme.

The court move “marks an unprecedented development in our administrative law and political history,” said Berk Esen, a political scientist at Sabanci University. “If upheld, it would open the door for courts to determine party leadership, with no comparable example in Turkey’s electoral system since 1946.”

Smaller opposition parties criticized the ruling as anti-democratic, while Devlet Bahceli, a nationalist leader and a key ally of Erdogan, suggested the judiciary should not intervene in internal party matters.

Legal crackdown

The CHP, the party of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has separately faced an unprecedented legal crackdown in which hundreds of members and elected officials have been detained since 2024 on corruption and other charges that it denies.

Among those jailed is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main rival and the CHP’s presidential candidate for an election that is due in 2028 but that, especially after the latest court ruling, is expected to come earlier.

Erdogan faces a term limit as president and can only run again if an election is called early or if the constitution is amended.

His government denies criticism that it uses courts to target political rivals, saying the judiciary is independent.