CHP leader defiant against dissidents calling for his resignation

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has responded defiantly to a group of party dissidents who called on him to resign due to the results of the presidential election, which they labeled a fiasco.

“The CHP’s grassroots is uneasy with their roaring. I should state with sadness that I am the one who carried most of these colleagues to politics. If a mistake is to be sought, then the mistake should be sought with me as the person who brought them [to the party],” Kılıçdaroğlu said in an interview with daily Cumhuriyet.

The interview was published Aug. 13, a day after a group of dissidents, known with their neo-nationalistic tendencies, urged Kılıçdaroğlu to resign and hold an extraordinary convention. The six lawmakers led by Ankara deputy Emine Ülker Tarhan, who was favored by the neo-nationalist camp within the party to be nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, held a joint press conference. The neo-nationalists argue Kılıçdaroğlu had taken the party away from its fundamental pillars by nominating Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu as a joint presidential candidate with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

“They are not the ones who brought me to this position, so there is no reason to fulfil their demand. They are even far away from understanding this simple reality although there are jurists among them,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in response to the call for resignation.

“I’m delivering an open call to them. In our party’s internal regulations, the way to gather a convention is written. If they are strong enough, then they will encounter me through collecting the required number of...