ANKARA, July 24 (Reuters) - Turkish opposition leader Ozgur Ozel and 90 other breakaway lawmakers launcheda new political party on Friday, seeking to regroup to challenge President Tayyip Erdogan after their former party faced an unprecedented legal crackdown.
They applied to the interior ministry to launch the so-called New Party in protest over a May court ruling that had annulled the Republican People's Party (CHP) 2023 congress and stripped Ozel of his title as CHP chairman.
The office of the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals confirmed on Friday afternoon that the New Party was among active political parties in Turkey, its website showed.
New Party emerges as the second-largest behind Erdogan's ruling conservative AK Party, which has 277 of 600 lawmakers in parliament, but reduced from the secular CHP's previous total of 135 lawmakers.
TURKISH OPPOSITION REMAINS FRAGMENTED
Forty-four MPs remain at CHP, including some Ozel backers and others supporting Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a divisive figure and former party chairman whom the court re-appointed to lead it.
Though the New Party is expected to attract most CHP voters and pose a new-look challenge for Erdogan, the broader splintering of the opposition could boost the president's prospects of extending his 23-year reign in the NATO-member country and regional military power.
"Today will be a significant milestone in Turkish political history," Ankara MP Murat Emir told reporters after he and others submittedthe application. "We are leaving an occupied party behind."
Ozel and the 90 other lawmakers resigned this week from the CHP, the party of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Speaking after the party's first meeting in Ankara, Ozel told reporters that his party will back jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as presidential candidate in the next elections, which are scheduled for 2028 but could be held earlier. Imamoglu "was not elected as the presidential candidate by a single political party, but by more than 15 million people," Ozel said.
Imamoglu, who is Erdogan's main political rival and mayor of Istanbul, has been jailed pending trial on corruption charges that he denies for more than a year.
He was elected as the CHP's presidential candidate in an internal party vote days after his detention in March 2025. His university diploma, which is a requirement for being a presidential candidate, was annulled by Istanbul University a day before he was detained.
"His candidacy faces a legal hurdle... We will work together to take right decisions with all the dynamics of the new party, including Imamoglu and (Ankara Mayor) Mansur Yavas," Ozel said
Yavas, the mayor of the capital Ankara, is seen as another potential challenger to Erdogan.
"Everything will be great. Let's get going, mates," Imamoglu said in a message posted on his X account, in reference to a slogan Ozel used when launching the new party.
The opposition and some rights groups have called the crackdown, including the jailing of hundreds of elected CHP officials and members since 2024, politically motivated and undemocratic. The government denies these claims and says the judiciary is independent.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever and Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Philippa Fletcher)
