Turkey's CHP chairman rejects ‘traditional Kemalism’

Kemalism should not be interpreted within the framework of a pro-status quo structure, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said, strictly ruling out claims that his party has recently moved away from Kemalism (Atatürkçülük), Hurriyet reports.

“The concept of Kemalism is a dynamic one. No offense, but if you put it in a pro-status quo structure, I would not call that [person] a Kemalist. Against which principle of Kemalism has the CHP stood so far? Or what stance that could be considered as against a principle of Kemalism has the CHP adopted?” Kılıçdaroğlu said July 19. Today’s CHP has been following more dynamic and more progressive policies than in the past, he said.

Kemalism is the founding ideology of both the Turkish Republic and the CHP, the republic’s oldest political party, and Kılıçdaroğlu seemed to be on the defensive when he was reminded of the criticism that he has kept his distance from pro-secularism as well as from Kemalist principles.

In an interview with the CNN-Türk news channel, Kılıçdaroğlu was then asked whether he would still reaffirm his past remark that the CHP is the party of Atatürk and that anyone holding the seat of leadership in the CHP is necessarily a Kemalist. Kılıçdaroğlu answered in the affirmative, saying, however, that he has rejected a “traditionalist” understanding of Kemalism.