Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) is to name its presidential candidate for the next election within months, its leader Ozgur Ozel said on January 28.

The next presidential and parliamentary polls are not scheduled until 2028, but Ozel implied the move is necessary to push back against what he said was a judicial crackdown on his party. Recent weeks have seen detentions and investigations aimed at CHP-run municipalities, as well as the usual moves made by the Erdogan administration to end control of local governments by the country’s main pro-Kurdish party.

"Today, ... by completing all the preparations [to name our candidate] ... in February, March and April, we are starting today to say that we are ready to [counter] this evil," Reuters reported Ozel as saying in an address to CHP parliamentarians, alluding to the investigations.

There are 1.6mn CHP members who will choose the party's presidential candidate in an internal vote, the party says.

On January 27, an Istanbul prosecutor commenced another judicial investigation into the city's Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a CHP member, who is widely expected to be the party’s presidential candidate. The investigation is looking at allegations that Imamoglu allegedly tried to influence the judiciary with his criticisms of legal inquiries into opposition-run municipalities.

Imamoglu accused officials of Turkey’s leader of 21 years Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using the judiciary as a political tool to put pressure on the opposition.

Ozel said the investigations into Imamoglu showed Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) was afraid of him.

The government has denied politically interfering in the cases concerning the municipalities. It asserts that the judiciary is independent.

Later on January 28, opposition television channel Halk TV announced that authorities had detained its journalists Baris Pehlivan and Seda Selek and its managing director Serhan Asker following the broadcasting of a phone call with the expert witness in the case against Imamoglu. The expert was publicly criticised by Imamoglu on January 27.

Imamoglu posted on X that the detentions were "embarrassing". Ozel issued a call to CHP members in Istanbul to protest in front of the Halk TV offices.