After a controversial court decision that reinstated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as party chair and frequent judicial actions against party-run municipalities, Türkiye's oldest political party, the pro-secular CHP (Republican People's Party), faces a critical division nowadays. In this piece, I am going to summarize the latest developments within Türkiye's main opposition party.
The party's 8th chair, Özgür Özel (52), who led the CHP to become the leading political force in the 2024 local elections with his unending energy and unexpected dynamism, now has to leave the party with his friends and supporters. This is because the party's 7th chair, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (78), who had been defeated several times by the ruling AK Parti (2002-) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2014-), the latest being in the decisive 2023 presidential election at the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Türkiye (Turkey), refuses to hold a congress and let party members and deleguates to decide who should run the party. In that sense, stuck between an authoritarian state that tries to avenge the pre-AK Parti/pre-Erdoğan period from the CHP and the secular elite and a weak and worn-out party leadership that collaborates with the government, Özel and his team have no choice but to establish a new center power bloc that could unify different segments of the opposition.
The announcement was made today by Özgür Özel himself at the party's parliamentary group meeting. The move, largely expected, poses the latest and greatest challenge to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), established more than a century ago by modern Türkiye's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Most CHP voters and parliamentarians are expected to follow Özel to the unnamed new party, after a court decision in May stripped him of his title as chairman by annulling the party's 2023 congress. Özel and leading CHP members claim that judicial operations against the opposition are made purely with a political logic and that there are no democratic conditions in the country anymore. Özel's criticism stems from the fact that the party's presidential candidate and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained and arrested in March 2025 on suspicion of corruption, extortion, bribery, money laundering, espionage, and supporting terrorism, particularly the PKK. The files against the party did not stop with İmamoğlu and many other municipal leaders have also been arrested on corruption charges in the last few months.
In his fiery speech today, July 21, 2026, Özel announced his resignation from the party to effectively lead the country's opposition. “Today, we are on the brink of a sad farewell that has become inevitable and whose time has come. However, we would like to share with the people that we carry the hope of a new beginning.”, Özel said to more than 80 CHP lawmakers, with strong support and loud applause coming from the party elite. “We are establishing our new party by taking the first step together with the deputies chosen by our nation.”, Özel said in his speech and continued, “These are the determined steps of a march toward governing Türkiye.”
Özel's intention to establish a new political party seems like a very plausible decision, since the current CHP leadership does not pose the kind of challenge to the government that one would expect in a real democratic regime. However, to assess conditions objectively, I should admit that Özel and his friends' job would be extremely difficult, as President Erdoğan is a political mastermind who uses his country's geopolitical value and assets as a mechanism to solidify his leadership. As proven at the latest NATO Summit in Ankara earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan still maintains his grip on power through various tactics and instruments. This is because while the democratic backsliding and economic problems alienate voters from the ruling party, Erdoğan uses Islamic (Israel-Palestinian Conflict) and nationalist causes (Cyprus Problem) to mobilize the right-wing voters. Moreover, Erdoğan enjoys solid support from Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump himself, while the more concerned European Union (EU) also prefers the status quo over adventurism for the moment. In addition, with his "Terrorless Türkiye" (Terörsüz Türkiye) initiative, President Erdoğan tries to make peace with the Kurdish voters by forcing the PKK to lay down arms in exchange for the PKK's imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan's freedom and some cultural rights granted to the Kurds.
In conclusion, while Özgür Özel has every right and motive to establish a real opposition party due to the current CHP leadership's passive attitude, his job would be extremely difficult at the peak of the security-oriented authoritarian renaissance globally. Exemplified by the success of the strongman leadership model in the U.S. (Donald Trump), Russia (Vladimir Putin), and China (Xi Jinping), authoritarianism is gaining power in most parts of the world. For sure, there will be a counter-wave at some point, and democratic regimes will start spreading again worldwide, but it is very difficult to predict when things will return to normal in Türkiye and around the world.
Last word, we hope Türkiye will strengthen its democracy and make peace with its own people soon.
Prof. Dr. Ozan ÖRMECİ
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