The 18th Republican People's Party Extraordinary Convention () took place on 5 and 6 September 2014 in order to elect a leader of the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi - CHP), a Turkish centre-left political party. Initially, an ordinary convention was due to be held in 2014, two years after the previous one in 2012. However, the party's incumbent leader Kemal KñlñçdaroÃÂlu accepted calls for an extraordinary convention to be held following the loss of the CHP's presidential candidate Ekmeleddin ðhsanoÃÂlu in the presidential election held in August. The ordinary convention will thus be held in 2015 instead.
The result was a victory for incumbent leader Kemal KñlñçdaroÃÂlu, who was re-elected with 64.1% of the delegates' votes. He had initially been nominated for the leadership with the signatures of 944 delegates (84.2%). His rival Muharrem ðnce congratulated KñlñçdaroÃÂlu and conceded defeat.
CHP leader Kemal KñlñçdaroÃÂlu announced that his party would support Ekmeleddin ðhsanoÃÂlu's candidacy for the presidency, claiming further that he himself had thought of ðhsanoÃÂlu as an adequate candidate. Besides the controversy over ðhsanoÃÂlu's alleged lack of secular credentials, KñlñçdaroÃÂlu drew criticism for not consulting MPs on his choice of candidate. When ðhsanoÃÂlu came a distant second with 38.44% of the vote in the presidential election, several MPs within the CHP voiced opposition to KñlñçdaroÃÂlu's choice of candidate and called for an extraordinary convention to be held before the June 2015 general election. Such MPs included Emine ÃÂlker Tarhan, Muharrem ðnce and Süheyl Batum, with ðnce claiming that former CHP leader Deniz Baykal also supported his opposition to KñlñçdaroÃÂlu. Initially, KñlñçdaroÃÂlu expressed regret for bringing the rebellious MPs into the party, accusing them of not helping in the presidential campaign and thus contributing to rival candidate Recep Tayyip ErdoÃÂan's victory in the first round. Regardless, KñlñçdaroÃÂlu and the CHP Youth Wing both accepted the notion to hold an extraordinary convention with a leadership election in September 2014, nullifying the need to obtain signatures before any convention can be proposed.
The convention is expected to take 3 days, either between 9âÂÂ11 September or 14âÂÂ17 September.
78 of 81 province heads of CHP except Yalova, Düzce and Isparta expressed their support to KñlñçdaroÃÂlu.
Metin FeyzioÃÂlu, who currently serves as the President of the Turkish Bars Association, stated that he would not be a candidate for the CHP leadership on 16 August. FeyizoÃÂlu had become famous for his opposition to Recep Tayyip ErdoÃÂan when the two publicly quarrelled at the State Council's 146th anniversary ceremony. In late August 2014, FeyizoÃÂlu stated that he did not regard the convention as democratic due to being held at such short notice and claimed that he would have been a candidate had the convention met "democratic standards".
Although normal CHP members or supporters could not vote, opinion polls were conducted to gauge voter's preferences before the convention.