Kemal Kilicdaroglu, restored as leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) by a court ruling issued on May 21, systematically purged the party’s ranks under direct pressure from the country’s intelligence service MIT during his previous term, former lawmaker Huseyin Aygun (@HuseyinAygun62) claimed on May 25.

Aygun and other dissidents said the return of Kilicdaroglu was tantamount to the “appointment of a trustee” by the presidential palace to head the CHP.

Critics say the move to impose Kilicdaroglu as the legally restored leader marks the symbolic collapse of CHP, the republic's founding party. Aygun’s testimony, meanwhile, seeks to reframe the development not as a sudden coup orchestrated by the palace, but as the final act of a decade-long subversion run by the government.

“The 2015 CHP purges and the role of MIT”

Aygun headlined his statement, released on X, as ‘“The 2015 CHP Purges and the Role of MIT”, noting: “Since Friday, May 21, 2026, the people of Turkey and CHP voters have been in a state of ‘shock.’ A former general chairman was appointed by the Palace as a ‘trustee’ to lead the CHP. Because of this, slogans of ‘Traitor Kemal’ have been chanted in the squares for the past few days. This is unprecedented in history.”

“On Sunday, May 24, the doors of the CHP headquarters were broken down, and police entered the building amidst tear gas, occupying it. This was an ironic message signalling the ‘liquidation of the Republic’,” Aygun also wrote.

“They destroyed the republic through the hands of a ‘former general chairman’ of the CHP. We are noting this down. But there are other ‘notes’ that the people of Turkey need to know of,” he added.

Interventions during Syria War

Aygun pointed to the critical electoral years of 2015 and 2018 as the inflection points where the CHP’s independent left wing was systematically dismantled.

“I will recount two incidents. These are events showing that the former CHP general chairman, Kilicdaroglu, ‘acted under the control of intelligence.’ The CHP was designed on the basis of these networks,” Aygun wrote.

According to the former MP, the realignment was triggered by fallout from the Syrian War, launched in 2011. At the time, some CHP lawmakers aggressively challenged Turkey’s government over its regional foreign policy and its alleged tolerance of jihadists operating along the volatile Hatay province border section.

“After 2011, the AKP [ruling Justice and Development Party] — and particularly MIT — became uncomfortable with the discussion of certain ‘sensitive topics.’ Syria tops the list of these matters,” Aygun said.

“MIT is watching you”

Refik Eryilmaz, a former CHP MP for Hatay province, led the lawmakers challenging policy, with documented exposure of cross-border militant activity.

“Refik was so effective that he was invited to the United States with the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) group regarding the ‘Syria issue.’ He went to the US and explained the probable consequences of supporting jihadists in the Middle East to today’s perpetrators—namely, the Americans,” Aygun posted.

He then claimed that Kilicdaroglu personally summoned Eryilmaz during “those intense weeks” to issue a stark warning: “The MIT is watching you, watch your steps.”

“I asked Refik: ‘What did you reply to Mr Kemal?’ Refik remained silent; I think he was a bit worried. It’s normal, anyone can be afraid. Especially when you are facing the state’s intelligence agency,” Aygun added.

“But the most important point here was that MIT ‘warned’ the leader of a party like the CHP, and the person who was supposed to be the general chairman—instead of saying to MIT: ‘By what right do you monitor my member of parliament?’—effectively intimidated his own MP,” Aygun said.

For seasoned observers of Turkish politics, the anecdote underscores a deeper institutional malaise. Rather than defending parliamentary immunity against security state overreach, Aygun alleges that the CHP leadership functioned as a transmission belt for state intimidation.

The MIT list

The crux of Aygun’s allegations rests on the existence of veto lists compiled by the security bureaucracy ahead of the 2015 general election. The former MP noted that figures close to Kilicdaroglu openly spoke of a “MIT list” detailing lawmakers whose political careers required termination.

Both Aygun and Eryilmaz were subsequently sidelined.

“A friend close to the general chairman spoke to me one day about a ‘list of crossed-out MPs.’ The ‘state’ had decided that certain MPs ‘should not be in the CHP in the next term’ (you can guess which ‘state’ this ‘state’ is),” Aygun said, referring to the common habit in Turkey of calling the government, headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the “state”.

Table of Six

The purge allegedly widened in 2018, expanding from individual anti-war dissidents to the broader structural left wing of the party. Aygun claimed this internal reshaping was an unwritten prerequisite for building the “Table of Six,” the ill-fated opposition coalition that sought to unite the secular CHP with nationalist and conservative splinter factions to unseat Erdogan.

Aygun also cited internal private admissions from Veli Agbaba, who still serves as an MP close to Ozgur Ozel (the CHP leader deposed by the court in favour of Kilicdaroglu). Agbaba reportedly conceded that the strategy amounted to a deliberate “liquidation of the CHP’s left wing” to satisfy nationalist interlocutors and deeper state actors.

Under direct control longer than a decade at least

“Following Kilicdaroglu’s appointment to the CHP as a ‘trustee’ and the ‘occupation of the CHP,’ I thought these ‘pages’ left in history ought to be known by everyone,” Aygun concluded his posted statement.

Aygun’s claims suggest that the CHP’s vulnerabilities were carefully engineered from within over a 10-year period, rendering it incapable of resisting its eventual neutralisation.

The CHP leadership has yet to issue a formal response to Aygun’s specific historical allegations.

However, with the party’s headquarters compromised and its core electorate out on the streets chanting against perceived betrayals, the line between Turkey’s ruling establishment and its official opposition has rarely looked more blurred to the public eye.