Özgür Özel leaves the CHP and founds the "Yeni Partei"

The new party was founded in the afternoon in Ankara; the constituent session took place in the afternoon in Ankara. On Friday morning, Özel signed the founding documents in a roughly 30-second video on the platform X; the documents were subsequently submitted to the Interior Ministry, according to the state news agency Anadolu.

Background: Court ruling against the CHP leadership

In May, a court in Ankara removed the CHP leadership around Özel on the grounds that there had been irregularities in favor of Özel in the election for party chairmanship in November 2023 — specifically, vote-buying was alleged. Through the ruling, Özel's predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was reinstated by court decision as acting chairman.

According to reports, the lawsuit against Özel had been filed by an anonymous CHP member from Kılıçdaroğlu's circle. Özel filed an appeal against the decision before the Supreme Court, which, however, did not rule on the case before the summer recess.

Under Özel's leadership, the CHP had risen in the 2024 local elections to become the strongest force in the country for the first time in decades. At the same time, the Turkish opposition has been under growing pressure for years; many of the mayors it has put in office are in prison, several investigations are ongoing against Özel himself, and motions to lift his parliamentary immunity have been filed but not yet decided.

Pressure on the opposition

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, for instance, has been in prison for more than a year on corruption charges; he is considered Erdoğan's most important challenger. The CHP had designated him as its presidential candidate despite his imprisonment.

In his speech on Tuesday, Özel described the new party as clearly social democratic and committed to the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, including the CHP's six foundational pillars such as the separation of state and religion, closeness to the people, and a reformist politics. In the video published on Friday, the following sentence is written on the wall behind him in golden letters: "Die Souveränität gehört bedingungslos und uneingeschränkt dem Volk."

Özel called the day after Friday prayers in Ankara a "entscheidenden Tag" for Turkish politics. He spoke of a "erzwungenen, traurigen Abschied" and of being at a "historischen Scheideweg." At the same time, he expressed an "unerschütterliche Hoffnung auf einen Neuanfang." While signing the documents, he said: "Möge es unserem Land, unserer Nation, unserer Partei und uns allen von Nutzen sein."

In his last speech as CHP faction leader in the Turkish parliament, Özel had previously declared that "die Partei stecke in einer Sackgasse." On Tuesday, speaking to the CHP MPs for nearly an hour in the faction chamber of the National Assembly in Ankara, he said he was not taking off his shirt, but that together they were all putting on "ein Hemd aus Feuer."

Özel's programmatic direction

Özel acknowledged that leaving the party he had belonged to since 2009 was "nicht leicht." With regard to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, he said: "Das letzte Wort gehört der Nation, es liegt nicht in Palästen oder bei einem einzelnen Mann."

With the defections, the "Yeni Parti" becomes the second-strongest force in parliament behind Erdoğan's AKP, which holds 277 seats. Initial flash polls by Turkish TV channels showed that around 30 percent of respondents could vote for such a party; another 19 percent wanted to make their voting behavior dependent on the platform and the candidate. Surveys in recent weeks had also already measured around 30 percent support for a new party.

The CHP looks back on a long political tradition and was founded by the founder of the state, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; it laid the foundations of the Turkish Republic. Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the 2023 presidential election to Erdoğan in May 2023 and had previously lost 13 elections against the president, has now been reinstated as party leader by court order.

An internal party motion with over 1,000 signatures aimed at convening a party congress was rejected by the Kılıçdaroğlu leadership. The Turkish government denies any political motivation behind the court ruling and attributes it to internal party disputes.

Reactions from abroad

Internationally, the move met with resonance: SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil congratulated Özel in Berlin on Friday on behalf of the SPD on the "historischen Neuanfang" and spoke of a "mutigen Schritt" in the fight for democracy. He also described the step as a "harter Schnitt," but also as a "Zeichen der Hoffnung" for democracy and the rule of law.

The political scientist Mehmet Ufuk Uras was more critical in an interview with the ARD Istanbul studio. He said: "Ich habe eher den Eindruck, dass man sich von eigenen Befürchtungen hat treiben lassen. Allerdings ist inzwischen offensichtlich eine schwere Vertrauenskrise entstanden. Es kam zu einem psychologischen Bruch, der sich offenbar nicht mehr reparieren lässt. Als Parteivorsitzender ist es Özgür Özel nicht gelungen, die Einheit und Geschlossenheit der CHP zu bewahren."

Uras also questioned how Özel's party would differentiate itself politically from the CHP: "Eine völlig neue Ideologie zu entwickeln, dürfte schwierig sein. Das ist offenbar auch gar nicht beabsichtigt. Vielmehr heißt es von Özel, man werde zur CHP zurückkehren; 'dieses politische Erbe gehört uns'."

Assessment by a political scientist

With the new founding, the crisis of the Turkish opposition — which has for years been confronted with proceedings, arrests and restrictions against politicians, journalists and activists — intensifies. Özel announced that his party would fight for democracy and declared: "Einige Schwierigkeiten müssen überwunden werden, bevor man den richtigen Weg einschlagen kann."