Turkey's main opposition party has replaced its leader after a disappointing election defeat by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Republican People's Party (RPP) has been divided since Kemal Kulçdaroğlu lost a bitter May runoff against Erdogan.
At the party's annual congress, delegates voted to replace Kulçdaroğlu with the relatively unknown Özgur Özel, squandering what many saw as the opposition's best chance to end Erdogan's two-decade rule, Sabah reported.
The May election came amid a severe cost-of-living crisis that analysts blame on Erdogan's unorthodox economic beliefs. However, the latter has changed his policy since winning the last election.
Kulçdaroğlu managed to assemble a multi-faceted alliance that included both right-wing nationalists and left-wing socialists and Kurds.
But the six-party bloc nearly collapsed months before the election and has since underperformed in opinion polls.
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party was able to cement its control of parliament.
Kulçdaroğlu then angered many in his own party by refusing to concede defeat and step down.
The 74-year-old politician lost his leadership post after two rounds of heated voting at the party's congress to a candidate backed by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Özgur Özel has spent much of his career as a private pharmacist in the resort town of Izmir.
He eventually became head of the Turkish Pharmaceutical Association and was elected to parliament in 2011.
The 49-year-old won the final vote by a margin of 812-536 after promoting himself as a candidate for "change".
But the vote was much more focused on personalities than on any specific policies.
Kulçdaroğlu compared the attempts to be overthrown to a "knife in the back".
Özel countered that he wanted to "write a new history and change Turkish politics".
Focus on the March election
The RPP congress comes as political attention turns to municipal elections in March, which Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) are entering in full force.
Erdogan has long prided himself on never losing a national election and maintaining the power of his conservative alliance both in parliament and over Turkey's major cities.
But his history of invincibility was threatened in the landmark 2019 elections, in which the opposition won both Istanbul and Ankara for the first time under Erdogan.
Erdogan is focused on winning back the two cities after his re-election this year for a new five-year term.
Analysts believe Erdogan's chances are best in Istanbul, the city where the Turkish leader grew up and where he launched his political career as mayor.
Incumbent Mayor Imamoglu became an opposition darling after winning a highly controversial re-election against Erdogan's ally in 2019.
But he has since lost some of his luster and currently faces the threat of being banned from politics by Turkish courts.
Imamoglu was convicted of insulting a public official and could be forced to resign if the conviction is upheld. Imamoglu symbolically supported Yozel's candidacy. /BGNES
