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Under the tear gas, the Turkish opposition finds a new star: Ozgur Ozel appears on the scene, who is Erdogan's new rival?

2026-05-25 23:21:20Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Under the tear gas, the Turkish opposition finds a new star: Ozgur Ozel appears
Ozgur Ozel

Ozgur Ozel seemed destined for a lackluster bureaucratic career as CHP chairman in the shadow of the charismatic Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and Erdogan's most promising challenger.

But with the arrest of the mayor and the judicial offensive against the opposition, Ozel is emerging as a combative and original leader who could replace Imamoglu, at least while he remains in prison.

Yesterday, Istanbul police forcibly entered the headquarters of the CHP, the Republican People's Party inherited from Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, and dispersed protesters with tear gas, rubber batons, violence and shoving.

The reason was a controversial decision by the Istanbul Court of Appeals, which annulled the party's 2023 congress, the congress that brought about Özel's election, and restored former leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, previously defeated by Erdogan and sidelined by the party itself, to the top.

The Turkish president is not officially involved in the court decision, but the opposition considers it a political decision managed by prosecutors and judges from the ruling AKP party. After the police intervention, Özel did not retreat: he marched several kilometers to Parliament together with other party members, unfazed by the rain. Thoroughly soaked but unbroken, he has now become a symbol for CHP militants.

"From today the party moves to the squares," Ozel declared to the crowd, directly accusing Erdogan: "He has lost his mind, he wants to decide for himself who his rivals will be" in order to "win the next elections. Turkey has ceased to be a modern democratic republic and has turned into an authoritarian regime."

Ironically, it was former "collaborator" Kilicdaroglu himself who demanded the intervention by force, hoping to return to the leadership of the party that had left him in the minority.

This has given Erdogan the opportunity to portray the crisis as an internal opposition conflict. “Don’t be fooled,” says Murat Somer, a political science professor at Ozyegin University. “This is not an internal war: around 95% of CHP voters support the current legitimately elected leadership and 65% of public opinion opposes the political processes towards the CHP.”

Kilicdaroglu led the party in the 2023 presidential election, achieving a good result but not enough to unseat Erdogan. Since then, he has been overshadowed by the popularity of Imamoglu, who polls show would win in a direct confrontation with the Turkish president.

But the Istanbul mayor was arrested more than a year ago on corruption charges in a trial led by former chief prosecutor Akin Gurlek, who had recently been appointed justice minister by Erdogan and had previously served as deputy minister.

When Imamoglu was imprisoned, Ozel occupied the city hall with other officials, sleeping on a sofa for several nights to defend the democratically elected administration. “Turkish democracy is in a coma,” he said at the time.

The trial against Imamoglu was intended to eliminate him from the race for the 2028 presidential election, but the CHP was still ahead of the AKP in the polls and already had a new, more combative leader. In recent months, several mayors and opposition officials have been arrested or dismissed by court orders. Now the blow has reached the top of the party.

There are those who believe that Erdogan wants to use the moment to call early elections as early as next November. Kilicdaroglu says he aims to "cleanse" the party of corruption, but many believe that he has become part of a maneuver where the opposition does not emerge victorious.

Turkish economist Atilla Yesilada sums up the situation this way: "Either he suffers from dementia, or he has joined Erdogan's payroll."/ La Repubblica


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