By Huseyin Hayatsever and Jonathan Spicer
ANKARA (Reuters) -A Turkish court will decide on Monday whether to oust the head of the main opposition, in what some see as a test of the country's shaky balance between democracy and autocracy after a nearly year-long legal crackdown on the party.
Hundreds of members of the Republican People's Party (CHP) have been jailed pending trial in a sprawling probe into alleged corruption and terrorism links, among them President Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival - Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
The unprecedented crackdown, which has eroded the CHP's leadership ranks, has also sharpened concerns over what critics call Turkey's autocratic slide in which the courts, media, military, central bank and other formerly more independent institutions have bent to Erdogan's will over his 22-year reign.
The centrist CHP, which denies the charges against it, is neck-and-neck with Erdogan's Islamic-rooted, conservative AK party (AKP) in the polls, and its scrappy, hoarse-voiced leader Ozgur Ozel has risen to prominence since Imamoglu's detention.
After headlining several dozen big anti-Erdogan street rallies this year, Ozel has emerged as the president's next biggest rival.
His political future is at stake in Monday's ruling, when an Ankara court will decide whether to overturn the CHP's congress in 2023 over alleged procedural irregularities. If it does, as most analysts expect, Ozel would be stripped of the CHP chairmanship he won at the meeting.
The court could then name a trustee to run the party, or reinstate former chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who Erdogan defeated in 2023 elections. It could also delay a ruling.
Kilicdaroglu has lost the trust of many CHP members who criticise his almost complete silence throughout the crackdown and see him as having grown close to Erdogan, accusations he denies.
"If such a judicial coup against the main opposition takes place, that would be the collapse of the multi-party system in Turkey," Berk Esen, a political analyst at Sabanci University, said of any ruling to oust Ozel as CHP leader.
BOOST FOR ERDOGAN?
Such a ruling could throw the opposition into further disarray and infighting, boosting Erdogan's chances of extending his rule.
The CHP, the party of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, denies all of the allegations it faces as unfounded and politically motivated, pointing out that they have only involved municipalities that it governs following sweeping local election victories in 2024.
Erdogan's government rejects this and says the judiciary is independent and needs time to sort through the tangle of CHP corruption.
Erdogan said this week that ignoring court decisions "is a blatant defiance of the rule of law. Such irresponsibility will not be tolerated".
Government officials and some analysts say the 2024 local elections, in which voters handed Erdogan's AKP its biggest ever defeat, showed that democracy underpins the NATO member country despite critics' concerns.
'JUDICIAL COUP'
The first CHP arrests began last October. When Imamoglu was detained in March, the lira and Turkish assets plunged, forcing the central bank to reverse a rate-cutting cycle.
Markets fell again two weeks ago when a court ordered the removal of the party's Istanbul provincial head over alleged irregularities in a separate congress vote.
The Istanbul ruling led to a dramatic police siege of the city's CHP headquarters, and efforts by lawmakers to block them with tables and chairs. Some analysts see that as a precursor to Monday's ruling in Ankara.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc has said the former ruling has implications for the latter.
Yet according to the constitution, only the Supreme Election Board - not any court - has the authority to supervise elections including party congresses. The board has already endorsed the CHP's choice of Ozel as chair.
Ozel has said the CHP would refuse to hand over his post in the wake of a court ruling, and that he would remain in its Ankara headquarters. If needed, he said the party could call millions of Turks to the streets to protest.
To protect Ozel, a large majority of CHP delegates have already called for an extraordinary congress on September 21 to re-elect him. Ozel says anyone appointed by the court to replace him would not be able to cancel this plan.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever and Jonathan Spicer;Editing by Helen Popper)
