The former leader of the “People’s Republicans” is creating a new party

The leader of the Turkish opposition and the former head of the Kemal People’s Republican Party (Turkish: CHP) Ozgur Ozel has announced the establishment of a new party ready to fight for power in Turkey. It is about the new political power that has been received “Nwhich party» (Yeni Partisi) name.

Most likely, the opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP) is no longer considered oppositional and prospective, either in the imagination of Özel or his electorate, after the raiding by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. In this regard, the opposition led by Ozel decided to take the initiative from the authorities by creating a new political organization.

According to some polls, almost 35% of potential voters are ready to vote for Özel’s new party. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) now has around 28% support, according to the same polls. Moreover, opposition members of the Turkish parliament are already allegedly joining the new party en masse, creating a real threat to the stability of the positions of AKP and pro-presidential People’s Alliance supporters in the Turkish National Assembly. TVMM). Thus, for now, Ozel’s and the opposition’s calculation is fully justified.

At the moment, the list of founders of the “New Party” includes 95 deputies of the People’s Republican Party (CHP), and only 44 people remain in the CHP. After the raid, it is less inclusive and less electorally representative, and the popularity of the nominal “Kemalites” is melting before the eyes of the voters.

The sources also claim that the current leader of the CHP, 77-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost the presidential election in 2023 (having never won it before), allegedly has the support of only 7 of the party’s 81 local branches.

At the same time, in any situation, according to the court’s decision, he remains the leader of the CHP․ now just the ruins of the once popular Turkish political party founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself in 1923, in which the strongest political divide is brewing, the forerunner of civil war or riot.

According to some domestic Turkologists, the story of the phoenix who rose from the ashes and achieved success in the 2024 local elections in the form of the People’s Republic Party has come to an end. That move, backed by force, delegitimized and discredited in the eyes of the general public any further actions of Kılıçdaroğlu and his group, regardless of the pretext. And Özel’s attempts to restore himself legally from May were not successful.

There are opinions that Kılıçdaroğlu, with his own hands, deprived his party of a person thanks to which he was able to succeed in the local elections and even claim success during the regular (or special) parliamentary elections.

Most likely, Özel will seduce the lion’s share of the electorate and will go to the elections already under the banner of the “New Party”, with not zero chances at all, as experts in the Turkish political kitchen believe.. The success of opposition sentiments is facilitated by the year-by-year deepening chaos in the economy, together with inflation, which cannot be hidden either by the success of the military industry, or by the inspiring struggle against external enemies. Moreover, The creation of a “new party” increases the risks of internal political destabilization.

It is noteworthy that the “New Party” started at a rather high speed. Only a day has passed since the announcement, and Ozel’s team has already found and pre-leased the building for the headquarters. Documents, symbols are in the process of preparation.

The party’s new slogan is “We will change the corrupt system of AKP”. According to skeptics, the New Party activist has yet to articulate a sufficiently original political vision designed to expand the electorate among conservatives, the Kurdish population and first-time voters in general.

There are certain signs that Özel is moving towards the leftist, socialist ideas that are quite popular among a part of Turkish society, at least at the level of slogans.

Meanwhile, some analysts missed an interesting detail. To some extent, it has been forgotten that a few months ago, the main figure of the Turkish opposition was not Ozel at all, but Ekrem Imamoglu. While the CHP splits, new parties are formed, and politicians engage in the fascinating process of splitting party structures and winning over supporters, the popular politician around whom the entire opposition campaign was built until recently remains behind bars with no visible chance of returning to active activity. Ozel, however, stated that he will continue to consider Imamoglu as the candidate of the opposition and will strive to achieve his release.

One of the central intrigues is whether the authorities will try to turn supporters of Özel and Imamoglu against each other.. In addition, only time will tell whether the fans of the Silivri prison inmate will give their votes to the leader of the “New Party”, who has yet to win his place in the sun in the confrontation with the state apparatus, big business closely connected to it and media servants.

At the same time, according to some data, President Recep Erdogan’s deteriorating health has intensified the struggle between rival centers of the ruling establishment., including between close relatives for the right of inheritance in a country where, according to the results of the 2018 constitutional referendum, all the power is concentrated in the hands of one person.

There is an assumption that an experienced politician like Erdogan will never voluntarily give up power. early elections would allow him to bypass constitutional norms that prohibit him from holding the office of president for the third time in a row, for which he needs 360 parliamentary votes.

While the AKP has 277 seats, the nationalist Devlet Bahceli has 44 more seats, and here a lot will depend on the People’s Democratic Party, which is conducting a difficult dialogue with the government for possible mitigations on the “Kurdish issue”.

However, it should not be denied that sometimes, especially during the break of historical eras, the most unexpected circumstances appear on the political stage, which happened many times in the history of both “Ottoman” and “new” Turkey after 1923.

External players may try to use domestic political changes for their own benefit, which may have ambiguous consequences for Russian-Turkish relations, especially in the current difficult conditions. According to local Turkologists, a split in the camp of the Turkish opposition is not a bad scenario, which can be used in case of competently structured work.

YURI MAVASHEV

fondsk.ru

Translation by Zhanna Avetisyan

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