JamesInTurkey.com

These local elections will go down in Turkish political lore as an historic turning point for two simple reasons: 🟠President Erdoğan's AK Party has suffered the worst defeats of its 22-year existence, 🔴The opposition CHP has surpassed even its own expectations 🧵to follow👇

We haven’t seen much of Kılıçdaroğlu today, apart from appointing a press secretary. The Özgür Özel camp, meanwhile, has launched a legal challenge at the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) which, they argue, certified the 2023 leadership vote and are the only ones who can annul it.

Critics also point out he has made little effort to engage with the CHP membership or voter base – and that his media interviews have largely been on pro-government channels – outlets which, ironically, shunned him when he actually was leader of the opposition.

It is the day after the night before and the anger at Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has been visceral: we’ve seen instances of his portrait being torn down in party offices, of crowds chanting “Traitor Kemal”. According to some reports today, he’s been left rather upset by it all.

Özel has previously admitted an entirely separate political party is being kept effectively in reserve – in case the CHP is shut down. But what to do if he is permanently shut out of the party, and is accused of splitting the vote on the Turkish centre-left?

It's been suggested this might be a prime opportunity to call an early general election, at a time when the legal ructions surrounding CHP could pervent the party from standing candidates and its presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu remains behind bars.

So, what happens now? The latest in a long string of court rulings against Turkey's main opposition party is an order to remove the party's leader, Özgür Özel. Is he still in office – and is the country heading for early elections?

But it’s the justice role that will get the Kremlinologists speculating. Is Gürlek’s new job a reward for the cases he led in Istanbul, or an effort to put some distance between him and them?

Also gone tonight is the interior minister Ali Yerlikaya. Those close to the government are making much of the fact he is the first hafız – someone who can recite the Koran from memory – in the role.

In a pretty stunning move, President Erdoğan has tonight appointed Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Akın Gürlek – the man who led many of the judicial cases against the opposition’s jailed presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu – as his new justice minister.