ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s main opposition leader, Ozgur Ozel, announced Friday the formation of the New Party (YP). Ozel and 90 lawmakers resigned from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), positioning the new group as the second-largest party to replace the CHP as the nation’s primary opposition.
"At the end of the day, we will have announced the New Party's Party Council, its General Chairman, the establishment of our party's group in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, and declared that our party is the main opposition party on the day it is founded,” Ozel told reporters, noting that “our path is the path to power. The direction our compass points is power."
“Today, our colleagues, with the signatures of all 91 of our MPs, submitted the necessary documents to the Ministry of Interior. They received the receipt confirming the establishment of the New Party and the commencement of its political activities,” the politician said.
The announcement follows Ozel’s resignation from the CHP on Tuesday and the announcement of plans to form a new party after a late-May ruling by an appeals court in Ankara that suspended CHP's Ozel leadership and reinstated the former administration, in a case concerning the legality of the party's 2023 congress, which had resulted in a leadership change.
Ozel defeated the CHP's long-standing leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu at the party congress. Following the vote, Kilicdaroglu's allies filed a lawsuit alleging vote-buying, bribery and procedural violations during the congress, accusations denied by the new administration.
Ozel's administration, which led the party for nearly three years, has described the court ruling as a "judicial coup" and accused the government of orchestrating the move to weaken the opposition ahead of future elections.
The New YP’s 91 parliamentarians make it the second-largest group in the 600-seat Turkish Grand National Assembly, trailing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds 277 seats.
The centrist CHP, which previously held 135 seats, has dropped to 44 seats, becoming the assembly's fifth-largest party.
Founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the CHP had been Turkey’s primary opposition force and won the 2024 local elections, a major blow to the AKP.
Human Rights Watch reported in late May that Erdogan's government is undermining democracy through "abusive tactics" against the CHP, calling the court ruling "the latest deeply damaging blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights" in Turkey.
The AKP has held power in Turkey since November 2002, maintaining a parliamentary majority through consecutive electoral victories, marking almost 24 years of control over the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
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