TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

A BRAND NEW PARTY IS EMERGING IN TURKEY, WITH SOCIETAL SUPPORT, TO REPLACE THE CLOSED CHP AND CRUSH THE RULING PARTY WITH ITS CUSTOMER-APPOINTED MEMBERS. GUARDIAN NEWS: Turkish court ruling removes main opposition party leader. This article is more than a month old. Court ruling cancels 2023 CHP leadership race and removes Özgür Özel, the face of opposition to Erdoğan. The ruling party was wrong about Özgür Özel's significant societal support. Now, a new party is emerging that will powerfully fill the void left by the CHP. A court in Turkey has removed the leader of the main opposition party in a ruling that has dealt a final blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's rivals. The ruling, issued Thursday by an appeals court in Ankara, canceled the 2023 leadership race within the Republican People's Party (CHP) and removed party leader Özgür Özel from office. Özel, 51, had become the face of the Turkish opposition, not only for being held responsible for the resurgence of the CHP, but also as one of the few in the party to avoid charges that could lead to his arrest. The court ruled that Özel would be replaced by his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Kılıçdaroğlu had lost to Erdoğan in the crucial 2023 general election despite rising opposition to the Turkish president's twenty-year rule. Özel's election as party leader comes before the 2024 Turkish local elections, in which the CHP ousted Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) from power in municipalities and mayoral positions across the country. Earlier this week, another Ankara court ordered Özel to pay the president 300,000 lira (£4,900) in damages for statements he made about Erdoğan, in which he called him a "tyrant." Özel had also told Erdoğan to "put your dogs on leashes" while criticizing the widespread crackdown on the opposition in Turkey. In response, Erdoğan described Turkey’s main opposition leader as a “dreamer,” saying, “We must protect the dignity of politics in the face of attacks.” Erdoğan has frequently leveled harsh public criticisms against the CHP, accusing the party of being “a puppet of terrorists trying to undermine this state.” The case that led to Özel’s removal has been widely criticized as an attempt to suppress the CHP and reinstate a leader more compliant with Erdoğan’s rule. Kılıçdaroğlu, who advocated for the “purification” of his own party, gave an optimistic response in an interview with the pro-government TGRT Haber channel, saying he hoped the decision would be “beneficial for Turkey and the CHP.” The decision rocked Turkey’s already struggling economy with fears of further instability: share prices on the Istanbul stock exchange fell by 6%, and trading was briefly suspended. Since the 2024 elections, observers have condemned a renewed crackdown targeting those who oppose Erdoğan’s rule, particularly opposition mayors and CHP local officials. More than 20 CHP mayors have been detained on charges of corruption, bribery, and terrorism. Last year, the arrest of Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, seen as a potential CHP presidential candidate, marked a turning point for the party and the country's struggling opposition. Thousands took to the streets to protest. İmamoğlu spent the past year in a high-security facility near Istanbul. Earlier this year, he testified in a mass trial among 400 defendants accused of participating in a wide-ranging corruption scheme allegedly linked to his time as mayor. Human Rights Watch has described this trial as part of a broader effort to weaponize the criminal justice system against the CHP. Across Turkey, many CHP municipal officials have faced corruption charges similar to those leveled against İmamoğlu. Five officials from Beşiktaş Municipality were detained earlier this week as part of a bribery investigation. CHP officials have indicated their willingness to participate in the presidential elections expected next year, leading to speculation that they might consider nominating the imprisoned former mayor, İmamoğlu, as a candidate. In an interview with The Guardian last year, Özel stated that they had plans for İmamoğlu to be a candidate even while imprisoned, and that Turkish authorities were prepared to demand İmamoğlu's arrest if Erdoğan "couldn't politically handle him, as is the case with İmamoğlu." Özel described the upcoming elections as "a referendum on whether Turkey will have an autocracy or a democracy."