Turkey’s ousted opposition leader says he is forming new party

Ozgur Ozel, the court-ousted leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, says he is formally resigning from the party and forming a new one.

In May, a Turkish court annuled the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 congress that elected Ozel as chairman, citing irregularities, amid an unprecedented crackdown on President Tayyip Erdogan’s opponents. It reinstated as chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the CHP’s former leader who lost to Erdogan in the 2023 presidential election.

“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,” Ozel says in a fiery speech to CHP lawmakers in parliament.

“Once the necessary procedures are completed, the new party we are about to establish will become the main opposition force in the Grand National Assembly by a wide margin,” he says.