18th Republican People's Party Extraordinary Convention

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu announced that his party would support Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu's candidacy for the presidency, claiming further that he himself had thought of İhsanoğlu as an adequate candidate. Besides the controversy over İhsanoğlu's alleged lack of secular credentials, Kılıçdaroğlu drew criticism for not consulting MPs on his choice of candidate. When İhsanoğlu came a distant second with 38.44% of the vote in the presidential election, several MPs within the CHP voiced opposition to Kılıçdaroğlu's choice of candidate and called for an extraordinary convention to be held before the June 2015 general election.^[3] Such MPs included Emine Ülker Tarhan, Muharrem İnce and Süheyl Batum, with İnce claiming that former CHP leader Deniz Baykal also supported his opposition to Kılıçdaroğlu.^[4][5][6][7] Initially, Kılıçdaroğlu expressed regret for bringing the rebellious MPs into the party, accusing them of not helping in the presidential campaign and thus contributing to rival candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's victory in the first round.^[8] Regardless, Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP Youth Wing both accepted the notion to hold an extraordinary convention with a leadership election in September 2014, nullifying the need to obtain signatures before any convention can be proposed.^[9]

The convention is expected to take 3 days, either between 9–11 September or 14–17 September.^[10]

78 of 81 province heads of CHP except Yalova, Düzce and Isparta expressed their support to Kılıçdaroğlu.^[11]

Although normal CHP members or supporters could not vote, opinion polls were conducted to gauge voter's preferences before the convention.