, said Wednesday that his allies could begin the formal process of establishing a new party by early August if their efforts to regain control of the CHP or force an extraordinary congress fail.){kind=link}
Özgür Özel, the ousted leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said Wednesday that his allies could begin the formal process of establishing a new party by early August if their efforts to regain control of the CHP or force an extraordinary congress fail.
A Turkish court in May annulled the CHP’s November 2023 congress, which elected Özel to replace longtime chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The court removed Özel and the party’s executive board and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu on an interim basis, citing alleged irregularities in the congress.
“An official step could be taken toward the end of July or the beginning of August,” Özel told Sözcü TV, when asked about the timing of the establishment of the new party.
He said preparations for the party were proceeding on several fronts, including work on its name, logo, bylaws and political platform.
Özel and his supporters have appealed the court’s May decision, which treated the 2023 congress and its results as legally invalid from the outset, and are separately trying to force an extraordinary congress at which delegates can elect new leadership.
Özel said the proceedings before the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor at the court could be resolved in one or two weeks.
His supporters submitted the notarized signatures of 833 delegates to CHP headquarters on June 17, demanding an extraordinary congress with a leadership election.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s interim administration has not called one.
“They are not holding the congress despite the signatures we submitted,” Özel said.
Özel and 28 Party Council members aligned with him resigned on June 11 in an attempt to trigger a provision in the CHP bylaws requiring that the chairman call a congress within 45 days if the party council’s membership falls below two-thirds after all substitute members have been summoned.
Özel’s team also applied to the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Appeals, claiming that the resignations had left the Party Council unable to function and made an extraordinary congress necessary.
“There is the Supreme Court of Appeals process, and there is also our application to its chief prosecutor concerning the Party Council having ceased to function and the requirement to hold a congress,” Özel said.
“These are all matters that could be concluded within a week, 10 days or 15 days.”
BBC Turkish reported this week that Özel’s team had prepared the petition required to establish a party and would decide at a July 22 meeting when to submit it to the Interior Ministry.
Officials close to Özel told the outlet that if the party is established, they aim to organize in at least two-thirds of Turkey’s 81 provinces and their central districts within five days.
The court ruling has plunged the CHP into its most serious leadership crisis in years while the party is also confronting a series of investigations targeting its municipalities and senior figures.
Among those jailed is İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP’s presidential candidate and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political rival. İmamoğlu has been in pretrial detention since March 2025 on corruption-related charges that he denies.
The CHP says the leadership case and municipal investigations are part of a politically motivated campaign to weaken the party after it defeated Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the March 2024 local elections.
Erdoğan’s government denies interfering in the judiciary and says the investigations concern criminal allegations.
A breakaway party led by Özel could split the main opposition ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2028, although an early vote remains possible.