Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Turkish economist and politician
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (pronounced [ceˈmal kɯɫɯtʃˈdaɾoːɫu] (listen); born Kemal Karabulut, 17 December 1948) is a Turkish economist, retired civil servant and social democratic politician. He is leader of the CHP ("Republican People's Party") and has been Leader of the Main Opposition in Turkey since 2010. He served as a Member of Parliament for İstanbul's second electoral district from 2002 to 2015 and as an MP for İzmir's second electoral district as of 7 June 2015.
Before entering politics, Kılıçdaroğlu was a civil servant and served as the President of the Social Insurance Institution (SSK) from 1992 to 1996 and again from 1997 to 1999. He was elected to Parliament in the 2002 general election and became the CHP's parliamentary group leader. In the 2009 local elections, he was nominated as the CHP candidate for the Mayor of İstanbul and lost to the AKP ("Justice and Development Party") with 37% of the vote, where the candidate from the AKP got 44.71% of the votes. He was elected deputy chairman of the Socialist International on 31 August 2012.After Deniz Baykal resigned as the party's leader in 2010, Kılıçdaroğlu announced his candidacy and was unanimously elected unopposed as the leader of the CHP. He was seen as likely to breathe new life into the CHP. Although the CHP saw a subsequent increase in its share of the vote, it was unable to unseat the ruling AKP as of 2021.