An Ankara court opens a hearing Monday into alleged vote buying that could upend the leadership of Turkey's main opposition CHP which has been battling a growing array of legal challenges.

On the eve of the case, vast crowds of protesters packed into Ankara's Tandogan Square in a huge show of defiance over the move which the CHP has denounced as a "political coup".

Critics say the vote-buying case is a politically motivated attempt to undermine Turkey's oldest political party, which won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP in 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls.

The CHP denies the charges and has accused the government of trying to defang it as an opposition force.

Early on Monday, there was a heavy police deployment outside Ankara's Diskapa courth

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