Riot police in Turkey have used tear gas and water cannon to break up a rally called by the ousted opposition leader Özgür Özel, days after a court dismissed him as head of the main opposition CHP party. The protest took place in İzmir on Sunday, as the country prepared for the four-day Eid al-Adha holiday.
Özel said that on Sunday, riot police battered their way into the CHP headquarters in Ankara, firing tear gas and beating party members before throwing them out. The crackdown followed a shock court ruling last Thursday that overturned a 2023 party primary that elected Özel, ordering his defeated rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to resume the leadership.
The court ruling has thrown the CHP into chaos. Özel, addressing thousands of chanting demonstrators from the top of a bus, urged Kılıçdaroğlu to agree to an immediate party congress. “Bring whoever you want as a delegate and let’s compete,” he said, challenging him to hold a primary within a week or two after Eid.
Özel described the ousting as “not an internal matter for the party” but a confrontation between the people and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “The issue is about stopping a party that is on the march towards ultimate power,” he said. The court case involved allegations of vote-buying in the 2023 primary, which had been thrown out in October for lack of substance before being overturned on appeal.
The assault on the CHP has intensified since the jailing of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival, on charges widely seen as political. Özel said: “Erdoğan has lost all restraint. Just as he imprisoned the presidential candidate who could defeat him, he is now effectively shutting down the political party that could defeat him. Turkey has ceased to be a modern democratic republic and has turned into a one-man regime.”
