ANKARA: Turkiye’s Ozgur Ozel resigned from the main opposition CHP with 90 other lawmakers on Friday 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 Turkiye’s oldest political party.
Sat at a desk flanked by a large Turkish flag, Ozel signed both his Republican Peoples Party (CHP) resignation papers and the founding documents for the “Yeni Parti”, or “New Party”.
Shortly afterwards, two lawmakers delivered the paperwork to the interior ministry.
With 91 lawmakers, Yeni Parti will be the second largest grouping in Turkiye’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 after attending 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 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
‘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 republic”.
Until now, the CHP had been the second largest party in 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 his last speech to CHP lawmakers on Tuesday, Ozel said Turkiye stood at “a historic crossroads”.
Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2026
