The political party has its origins in the various resistance groups founded during the Turkish War of Independence, with most members being previously associated with the Committee of Union and Progress. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, these groups united at the 1919 Sivas Congress. Founded as the 'People's Party' in 1923, the organisation adopted the prefix 'Republican' shortly after the proclamation of the Republic.
Under Atatürk's first presidency, the party oversaw the establishment of the Turkish Republic. As Turkey moved into its authoritarian one-party period, the CHP became the primary apparatus for implementing far-reaching political, cultural, social, and economic reforms across the country.
After World War II, Atatürk's successor, İsmet İnönü, allowed for multi-party elections, and the party initiated a peaceful transition of power after losing the 1950 election, ending the one-party period and beginning Turkey's multi-party period. The years following the 1960 military coup saw the party gradually trend towards the center-left, which was cemented once Bülent Ecevit became chairman in 1972.
The CHP, along with all other political parties of the time, was banned by the military junta of 1980. The CHP was re-established with its original name by Deniz Baykal on 9 September 1992, with the participation of a majority of its members from the pre-1980 period. From 2002 to 2026 it was the main opposition party to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
In May 2026, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was re-appointed as chairman via a controversial court order, invalidating the previous party congress that resulted in Özgür Özel becoming chairman. After accusing the Kılıçdaroğlu party administration of turning the CHP into controlled opposition, Özel founded the New Party, to which a majority of CHP MPs defected. The New Party became the largest opposition party in Turkey following these defections.
CHP is an associate member of the Party of European Socialists (PES), a member of the Socialist International, and the Progressive Alliance. Many politicians of CHP have declared their support for LGBT rights and the feminist movement in Turkey. The party is pro-European and supports Turkish membership to European Union and NATO. The party also fully supports the enlargement of the European Union and NATO.
History
Establishment: 1919–1923
The Republican People's Party has its origins in the resistance organizations, known as Defence of Rights Associations, created in the immediate aftermath of World War I in the Turkish War of Independence. In the Sivas Congress, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) and his colleagues united the Defence of Rights Associations into the Association for the Defence of National Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu ve Rumeli Müdâfaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti) (A–RMHC), and called for elections in the Ottoman Empire to elect representatives associated with the organization.
The CHP, which regards itself the successor to the A–RMHC, considers the Sivas Congress its inaugural party congress. Most members of the A–RMHC were previously Young Turks associated with the Committee of Union and Progress, and veterans of the tumultuous politics of the Second Constitutional Era.
After the forced dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, A–RMHC members proclaimed the Grand National Assembly as a counter government from Istanbul, which was appeasing the Allied powers. After Grand National Assembly forces militarily defeated Greece, France, and Armenia, they overthrew the Ottoman government and abolished the monarchy.
After the 1923 election, the A–RMHC was transformed into a political party called the People's Party (Halk Fırkası) soon changing its name to Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası, and then Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) (CHP). With a united parliament, the republic was proclaimed with Atatürk as its first president, the Treaty of Lausanne was ratified, and the Caliphate was abolished the next year.
One-party period: 1923–1950
Atatürk era
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's People's Party began as a de facto successor of the Young Turks and the CUP. In 1924, a right-wing opposition to Atatürk led by Kâzım Karabekir, reacting against the abolition of the Caliphate, formed the Progressive Republican Party. The life of the opposition party was short. The Progressive Republican Party faced allegations of involvement in the Sheikh Said rebellion, overthrow the regime, and for conspiring with remaining members of the CUP to assassinate Atatürk in the İzmir Affair.
Martial law was declared, all political parties except the CHP were banned, all newspapers beyond state approved papers were banned (this ban would be lifted by 1930), and Karabekir's supporters were purged from the government. Republican Turkey was the third one-party state of Interwar Europe, after the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy.
For the next two decades Turkey was under a paternalist one-party authoritarian dictatorship, with one interruption; another brief experiment of opposition politics through the formation of the Liberal Republican Party.
From 1924 to 1946, the CHP introduced sweeping social, cultural, educational, economic, and legal reforms that transformed Turkey into a republican nation state. Such reforms included the adoption of Swiss and Italian legal and penal codes, the acceleration of industrialization, land reform and rural development programs, nationalization of foreign assets, forced assimilation policies, strict secularism, women's suffrage, and switching written Turkish from Perso-Arabic script into Latin script, to name a few.
In the party's second congress in 1927 (the first since the Sivas Congress), Atatürk delivered a thirty-six hour long speech (known as Nutuk, or "The Speech") of his account of the pivotal last eight years of Turkish history, which ended with an appeal to the Turkish youth to protect the Republic. Its narrative has served as the basis of a growing cult of personality associated with Atatürk and the historiography of the transition to the Republic from the Sultanate.
In the period of 1930–1939, Atatürk's CHP clarified its ideology with 'The Six Arrows': republicanism, reformism, laïcité (secularism), populism, nationalism, and statism. They defined Atatürk's principles, which were soon known as Kemalism, and were codified into the constitution on 5 February 1937.
With the Ottomanism question settled, Turkish nation-building was prioritized which saw nationalist propaganda, language purification, and pseudo-scientific racial theories propagated. Opposition to Atatürk's reforms were suppressed by various coercive institutions and military force, at the expense of religious conservatives, minorities, and communists.
The party-state cracked down on Kurdish resistance to assimilation, suppressing multiple rebellions and encouraging the denial of their existence. Anti-clerical and anti-veiling campaigns peaked in the mid-1930s. In the party's third convention, it clarified its approach towards the religious minorities of the Christians and the Jews, accepting them as real Turks as long as they adhere to the national ideal and use the Turkish language.
However under the state sanctioned secularist climate Alevis were able to make great strides in their emancipation, and to this day make up a core constituency of the CHP. With the onset of the Great Depression, the party divided into statist and liberal factions, being championed by Atatürk's long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and his finance minister Celâl Bayar respectively.
Atatürk mostly favoured İnönü's policies, so economic development of the early republic was largely confined to state-owned enterprises and five-year plans. However near the end of Atatürk's presidency Bayar was appointed Prime Minister after İnönü fell from favor. Further left-wing Republicans centered around the Kadro circle were deemed to be impermissible, so they were closed down.
İnönü era
On 12 November 1938, the day after Atatürk's death, his ally İsmet İnönü was elected the second president and assumed leadership of the Republican People's Party. İnönü's presidency saw heavy state involvement in the economy and further rural development initiatives such as Village Institutes. On foreign affairs, the Hatay State was annexed and İnönü adopted a policy of neutrality despite attempts by the Allies and Axis powers to bring Turkey into World War II, during which extensive conscription and rationing was implemented to ensure an armed neutrality.
Non-Muslims especially suffered when the CHP government implemented discriminatory "wealth taxes," labor battalions, and peon camps. Over the course of the war, the CHP eventually rejected ultranationalism, with pan-Turkists being purged in the Racism-Turanism Trials.
In the aftermath of World War II, İnönü presided over the democratization of Turkey. With the crisis of war over, factionalism between the liberals and statists again broke out. The Motion with Four Signatures resulted in the resignation of CHP members, most prominently Bayar, who then founded the Democrat Party (DP).
İnönü called for a multi-party general election in 1946 – the first multi-party general election in the country's history, in a contest between the DP and CHP. The result was a victory for the CHP, which won 395 of the 465 seats, amid criticism that the election did not live up to democratic standards. Under pressure by the new conservative parliamentary opposition and the United States, the party became especially anti-communist, and retracted some of its rural development programs and anti-clerical policies.
The period between 1946 and 1950 saw İnönü prepare for a pluralistic Turkey allied with the West. A more free and fair general election was held in 1950 that led to the CHP losing power to the DP. İnönü presided over a peaceful transition of power. The 1950 election marked the end of the CHP's last majority government. The party has not been able to regain a parliamentary majority in any subsequent election since.
İnönü's continued chairmanship: 1950–1972
Opposition to the DP
Due to the winner-take-all system in place during the 1950s, the center-right DP achieved landslide victories in elections that were reasonably close, meaning the CHP was in opposition for 10 years. In the meantime, the CHP began a long transformation into a social democratic force. Even before losing power İnönü created the Ministry of Labour and signed workers protections into law, and universities were given autonomy from the state.
In its ninth congress in 1951, the youth branch and the women's branch were founded. In 1953, the establishment of trade unions and vocational chambers was proposed, and support for a bicameral parliament, the establishment of a constitutional court, election security, judicial independence, and the right to strike for workers was added to the party program.
Though the DP and CHP were rivals, the DP was founded by conservative Republicans who mostly continued Kemalist policies. But despite its name, the Democrat Party became increasingly authoritarian by the end of its rule. İnönü was harassed and almost lynched multiple times by DP supporters across Turkey, and the DP government confiscated CHP property, shut down newspapers supporting CHP, and harassed their members.
The DP blocked the CHP from forming an electoral alliance with opposition parties for the 1957 snap election. By 1960, the DP accused the CHP of plotting a rebellion and threatened its closure. With the army concerned by the DP's authoritarianism, Turkey's first military coup was performed by junior officers. After one year of junta rule the DP was banned and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and two of his ministers were tried and executed, though president Celâl Bayar spared due to his old age and ailing health.
Right-wing parties which trace their roots to the DP have since continuously attacked the CHP for their perceived involvement in the hanging of Menderes.
1960s
The CHP emerged as the first-placed party at the general election of 1961 and formed a grand coalition with the Justice Party, a successor-party to the Democrat Party. This was the first coalition government in Turkey, which endured for seven-months. İnönü was able to form two more governments with other parties until the 1965 election.
His labour minister Bülent Ecevit was instrumental in giving Turkish workers the right to strike and collective bargaining. As leader of the Democratic Left faction in the CHP, Ecevit contributed to the party adopting the Left of Centre (Ortanın solu) program for that election, which they lost against the Justice Party.
İnönü favoured Ecevit's controversial faction, resulting in Turhan Feyzioğlu leaving the CHP and founding the Reliance Party. When asked about his reasoning for his favouring Ecevit, İnönü replied: "Actually we are already a left-to-center party after embracing Laïcité. If you are populist, you are [also] at the left of center." With Feyzioğlu's departure, the CHP participated in the 1969 election with a Democratic Left program without qualms, though it achieved a similar result as its performance from last election due to the growing perception that the party primarily appealed to the educated urban elite.
İnönü remained as opposition leader and the leader of the CHP until 8 May 1972, when he was overthrown by Ecevit in a party congress, due to his endorsement of the military intervention of 1971.
Bülent Ecevit: 1972–1980
As chairman, Bülent Ecevit adopted a distinct left wing role in politics and, although remaining staunchly nationalist, implemented democratic socialism into the ideology of CHP. His arrival saw support for the party increase in the 1973 election. After establishing a coalition arrangement with an Islamist party, Ecevit made the decision to invade Cyprus in an atmosphere of deteriorating order on the island that threatened the safety of Turkish Cypriots.
The 1970s saw the party solidify its relations with trade unions and leftist groups in an atmosphere of intense polarization and political violence. The CHP achieved its best ever result in a free and fair multi-party election under Ecevit, when in 1977, the party received 41% of the vote, but not enough support for a majority government.
Although Ecevit was able to form a government due to some MPs defecting from the Justice Party, the resulting Ecevit government was not stable either. Ecevit and his political rival Süleyman Demirel would constantly turnover the premiership as partisan deadlock took hold. This, combined with the chaos and political violence in Turkey, eventually ended in a military coup in 1980, resulting in the banning of every political party, political association, labour union, and major politicians being jailed and banned from politics.
Recovery period: 1980–2002
Both the party name "Republican People's Party" and the abbreviation "CHP" were banned until 1987. After democracy was restored, until 1999 Turkey was ruled by the centre-right Motherland Party (ANAP) and the True Path Party (DYP), unofficial successors of the Democrat Party and the Justice Party, as well as, briefly, by the Islamist Welfare Party.
CHP supporters also established successor parties. By 1985, Erdal İnönü, İsmet İnönü's son, consolidated two successor parties to form the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP), while the Democratic Left Party (Turkish: Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP) was formed by Rahşan Ecevit, Bülent Ecevit's wife (Bülent later took over the DSP in 1987).