Turkey’s Ozgur Ozel on Friday resigned from the main opposition CHP with 90 other lawmakers to set up his own party to fight President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The move came two months after a court removed him as leader of the CHP and brought back his defeated predecessor, sparking widespread anger within Turkey’s oldest political party.
Sat at a desk flanked by a large Turkish flag, Ozel signed both his Republican People’s Party (CHP) resignation papers and the founding documents for the “Yeni Parti”, or “New Party”, a video posted on X showed.
Shortly afterwards, two lawmakers delivered the paperwork to the interior ministry.
With 91 lawmakers, Yeni Parti will be the second largest grouping in Turkey’s 600-seat parliament after Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party, which holds 277 seats.
Hailing it as a “critical day” for Turkish politics, Ozel vowed his new party would fight for democracy in a brief address outside a mosque in Ankara’s historical centre where he attended Friday prayers.
“The final word belongs to the nation, it does not reside in palaces or with one man,” he said, referring to Erdogan as the huge crowd chanted “No-one can do it alone. Either we’re all in this together or we’re lost!” and one lone voice could be heard saying: “Save us from these scoundrels!”
Asked about resigning from a party he had been a part of since 2009, Ozel admitted it “wasn’t easy, but some difficulties must be overcome before embarking on the right path.”
He then went to meet the party’s founding committee to establish its structure and governing bodies at the Anatolian Club, a historical social club set up 100 years ago by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Very important political milestone
“We hope today will be a very important milestone in Turkish political history,” lawmaker Murat Emir told reporters after leaving the interior ministry, pledging the party would “tear apart this darkness that has fallen upon our country” and work to build “a more just” Turkey.
Until now, the CHP had been the second largest party in Turkey’s parliament with 135 lawmakers.
But with the resignations, that number drops to 44, leaving it in fourth place after the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), which has 56 seats.
Ozel was removed as CHP leader on May 21 when a court reinstated his unpopular predecessor Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who quickly began “purging” the ranks.
Although Ozel appealed the ruling, procedural delays meant the paperwork did not reach the Supreme Court until just hours before it broke for the summer recess, triggering his move to set up a new party.
The Ankara court annulled the CHP’s 2023 leadership election because of vote-buying allegations. The move was widely seen as a political manoeuvre to quash Erdogan’s opponents, raising concerns about democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
A shirt of fire
In his last speech to CHP lawmakers on Tuesday, Ozel said Turkey stood at “a historic crossroads”.
“In politics, we do not give up on our beliefs; instead, we all take on a difficult and risky burden for the country’s sake,” he said, using a Turkish idiom about “putting on a shirt of fire”.
Ozel became leader when the CHP was in crisis, and his arrival had an immediate impact — within five months, it won a huge victory in the March 2024 local elections, trouncing Erdogan’s AKP.
Since then, it has faced growing legal pressure with hundreds of officials arrested on graft allegations, including Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, widely seen as one of the only politicians capable of defeating Erdogan in a presidential election.
To date, at least 27 CHP mayors are behind bars.
July 24 was chosen as the founding date because it marks the signing of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that established the borders of modern Turkey.
About six week later, Ataturk set up the CHP and, on October 29, officially proclaimed the Republic of Turkey, becoming its first president.
