{"id":136415,"date":"2026-07-28T11:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/136415\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:02:11","slug":"280-former-lawmakers-quit-chp-to-back-ozels-new-opposition-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/136415\/","title":{"rendered":"280 former lawmakers quit CHP to back \u00d6zel\u2019s new opposition movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A total of 280 former lawmakers from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) announced on Monday that they were resigning to support the newly established New Party, deepening a split in the opposition three days after the party\u2019s launch, Turkish Minute<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The announcement signals substantial support among former CHP politicians for New Party Chairman \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel, who\u00a0established<\/a>\u00a0the movement with 90 other sitting lawmakers after a court\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0him from CHP leadership in May and reinstated his predecessor, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement on Monday the former lawmakers said they were leaving the CHP \u201cout of responsibility toward our party\u2019s core values and Turkey\u2019s bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n

They pledged support for the New Party\u2019s political vision, describing it as committed to democracy, the rule of law, pluralism, social democracy and the founding principles of the Turkish Republic.<\/p>\n

The statement also called for internal party democracy and primary elections involving all party members.<\/p>\n

The signatories characterized their departure as temporary, saying they were leaving until the CHP\u2019s \u201clegal personality\u201d could one day be reclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u00d6zel and 90 other CHP lawmakers resigned on Friday and formally established the New Party. With 91 seats in Turkey\u2019s 600-member parliament, the party has overtaken the CHP as the country\u2019s main opposition group.<\/p>\n

The departures reduced the CHP\u2019s representation to 44 seats, making it the fifth-largest party in parliament.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The six biggest parties in the Turkish parliament<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, \u00d6zel told the S\u00f6zc\u00fc daily on Monday that his party would not recognize the court-reinstated CHP administration as a legitimate political counterpart because it had not been elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CHP is currently being run by people who were not elected,\u201d he said. \u201cPolitics is conducted with elected representatives. We will not treat an administration appointed by a court as a political counterpart, either positively or negatively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00d6zel said his allies had exhausted the available legal avenues inside the CHP but ultimately concluded that establishing a new party had become unavoidable.<\/p>\n

Former CHP chairman K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, who returned to the leadership following the court ruling, said over the weekend that the party had \u201clargely completed\u201d what he described as a process of purification.<\/p>\n

He said there was no place in the CHP for politicians involved in corruption.<\/p>\n

His remarks reflected the government\u2019s narrative surrounding a sweeping crackdown on the CHP that began after the party defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2024 local elections.<\/p>\n

At least 27 CHP mayors have been jailed pending trial, while hundreds of party officials have been detained or arrested, primarily on corruption-related allegations.<\/p>\n

The CHP under \u00d6zel rejected the accusations as part of a government campaign to sideline Erdo\u011fan\u2019s elected rivals. The government denies interfering in the judiciary and maintains that the investigations concern criminal misconduct.<\/p>\n

Separately, \u0130zmir Mayor Cemil Tugay, who resigned from the CHP before the New Party\u2019s launch, said he would continue serving as an independent. He also denied speculation that he planned to join President Erdo\u011fan\u2019s AKP.<\/p>\n

The split follows a May ruling by an Ankara appeals court that annulled the CHP\u2019s November 2023 congress over allegations of vote buying and manipulation. The ruling removed \u00d6zel and the party bodies elected under his leadership and reinstated K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and his former administration. The CHP leadership under \u00d6zel rejected the decision as politically motivated judicial interference.<\/p>\n

\u00d6zel had\u00a0defeated<\/a>\u00a0K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu at the 2023 congress following the CHP\u2019s loss in that year\u2019s presidential election. Under \u00d6zel, the party\u00a0finished<\/a>\u00a0first nationwide in the March 2024 local elections.<\/p>\n

He later emerged as the public face of the opposition after \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, the CHP\u2019s presidential candidate and Erdo\u011fan\u2019s most prominent political rival, was\u00a0jailed<\/a>\u00a0pending trial on corruption charges in March 2025. \u0130mamo\u011flu and the opposition say the prosecution is politically motivated, an allegation the government denies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A total of 280 former lawmakers from Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) announced on Monday that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[65986,2031,425,33603,65987,429,8632,314,430,131,132,155],"class_list":["post-136415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-cemil-tugay","tag-crackdown-on-opposition","tag-democracy","tag-kemal-kilicdaroglu","tag-new-party","tag-oppression","tag-ozgur-ozel","tag-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-republican-peoples-party-chp","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116997269262173376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}