Deposed Turkish opposition leader plans new party

Published 21 July 2026 · politics

Ozgur Ozel hopes to launch new main opposition after court removed him as leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Turkiye’s opposition leader Ozgur Ozel

Ozgur Ozel hopes to launch new main opposition after court removed him as leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Turkiye’s opposition leader Ozgur Ozel has announced a plan to form a new political party after he was ousted from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Ozel made the announcement in a speech in parliament on Tuesday. Ozel was ousted as leader of his former party by court order in May, amid what the opposition has called a crackdown by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The former CHP chief said his new political project marked “the hope of a new beginning” in efforts to depose Turkiye’s long-time leader. The new party, whose name has not yet been announced, is expected to trigger an exodus of voters and parliamentarians from the secularist CHP, which was founded more than a century ago by modern Turkiye’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Turkiye’s opposition has been facing a series of legal problems, with hundreds of elected municipal officials and members jailed since late 2024. “We are establishing our new party by taking the first step together with the deputies chosen by our nation,” said Ozel. “These are the determined steps of a march toward governing Turkiye.” The move comes two months after an appeals court stripped Ozel of his title as CHP chairman and reinstated the party’s former and unpopular leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Many of the CHP’s 135 legislators in the 600‑seat parliament were expected to defect and join the new party, which Ozel said would become the parliament’s main opposition “by a wide margin”. However, some have suggested that a new Ozel-led party could play into Erdogan’s hands by splitting opposition forces. Politically motivated ‘coup’ Criminal investigations across Turkiye – mostly alleging corruption in CHP‑run municipalities – have led to hundreds of elected officials and party members being detained, including Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, who is widely considered the strongest potential challenger to Erdogan.

Imamoglu has been imprisoned since March last year and faces criminal cases that could result in decades-long sentences. Ozel and critics say the court ruling against him and a broader legal crackdown on the CHP amount to a politically motivated “coup”. The government, however, insists that Turkiye’s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure. Erdogan, who has ruled Turkiye for more than two decades, first as prime minister and later president, has rejected claims of government intervention in the judiciary, describing the legal case that led to Ozel’s ouster as an internal dispute within the CHP. Under Ozel’s leadership, the CHP delivered a significant blow to Erdogan’s ruling party in the 2024 municipal elections, gaining several cities and strengthening its hold on key municipalities that it first won five years earlier, including Istanbul and Ankara.