CHP Malatya Faces 'Lockout' Crisis as Elected Leaders Denied Office Access

Elected Republican People's Party (CHP) district leaders in Malatya found themselves locked out of their offices on Monday, claiming the party's provincial headquarters had changed the locks. The incident highlights a deepening internal conflict within the party, with local officials challenging the legitimacy of the new provincial leadership appointed by the central committee.

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We still hold our positions and are at our posts. But when we went upstairs at 2:00 PM on June 29, we saw that the keys to our floors had been changed. We cannot enter our floors. They even say they are not letting the managers in; they are not letting our people in.

Alper Gürsoy, the elected CHP Battalgazi District Chairman, along with other district and women's branch leaders, arrived at the provincial building only to discover they could not access their floors. Gürsoy denounced the actions as the work of an "absolutely void" administration, stating that they, as elected officials, were still in their roles but were being barred from their workspaces. He further alleged that portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and İsmet İnönü had been removed from the building's facade.

Gürsoy asserted that the appointed provincial leadership, led by "Satılmış Başkan," lacks any genuine support or recognition within Malatya. He described them as individuals who have failed to establish a local presence or connect with the community, suggesting their actions are detrimental to the party's standing. "Malatya does not take these people seriously," Gürsoy stated, emphasizing that the public is not behind them.

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They have removed the picture of Atatürk, you see here, the picture of İnönü, all of these.

The dispute centers on the validity of the new leadership, which local elected officials claim was imposed without proper consultation or democratic process. The lockout and the alleged removal of historical figures' portraits signal a sharp escalation in the internal power struggle, with elected representatives being physically excluded from party premises.

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Malatya does not take these people seriously. These are a few people around the general manager of absolute void in Ankara and President Satılmış here; these are people who could not achieve anything in Malatya themselves, whom Malatya does not recognize as proper people, whose organizations in Malatya could not get anywhere.