Opposition Party HQ Stormed in Turkey as Leader Defies Court Order

The head of Turkey’s opposition party, Özgür Özel, is expressing defiance after police stormed the party’s headquarters at Ankara Sunday in an effort to toss him out following a federal court’s ruling last week declaring his leadership illegal. Mr. Özel, the party’s general chairman, and his supporters have been holed up in the Republican People’s Party headquarters for three days over what objectors are calling a “judicial coup” perpetrated by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Ankara civil court had ruled Mr. Özel’s leadership, gained in a party convention in November 2023, was invalid, and sought to reinstate its former head, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, who led the party from 2010 until the convention in 2023, and his allies accused Mr. Özel of fraud and vote buying during the convention. However, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu is accused by opponents of being a puppet to Mr. Erdoğan. The head of the Justice and Development Party, Mr. Erdoğan has been in office for 23 years and throughout has instituted several antidemocratic measures to seal his power, including changing Turkey’s national election system, stacking the courts, jailing journalists, and clamping down on public demonstrations of dissent.“Our crime is making the CHP the leading party after 47 years, defeating the AKP for the first time since its founding. Our crime is being the hope of pensioners and minimum wage earners,” Mr. Özel said.“What these coup plotters have done to our nation is enough. And let those coup plotters be assured that they will never take our struggle from us!” Mr. Özel said, shouting to hundreds of supporters assembled outside the building on Sunday. Previously one of the nation’s largest political parties and founded by the leader of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Republican People’s Party has been facing a broadside for years. The party’s popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, seen as the best chance of challenging Mr. Erdoğan in national elections in 2025, and two other mayors were arrested on alleged corruption charges in March 2025 stemming from the 2023 election. Held in jail while facing charges, the courts added an additional charge in July for allegedly threatening the chief prosecutor at Istanbul and in October for political espionage.“Those who dare to dictate the fate of this nation, those who try to seize the will of this people, will experience exactly what those before you have endured,” a defiant Mr. Imamoğlu wrote in a X post on Sunday vowing to stand by Mr. Özel. On Saturday, an additional 13 members in seven provinces associated with the 2023 convention were detained by police, according to Turkey’s Daily Sabah newspaper. They face charges of “violating the law on political parties,” “accepting bribes” and “laundering assets derived from crime,” according to the Istanbul police chief. Nine of the 13 remain in custody. Acknowledging that the police will eventually win the standoff, Mr. Özel, whose party is within reach of winning the parliamentary majority in the 2028 elections, according to recent polls, said he did not know how much longer he could hold off, but the building is just a place, not the heart of the movement.Mr. Özel said he would appeal the ruling to a Court of Appeals and the Supreme Election Council. He also left open the option to hold new party elections, an agreement that party officials close to Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu said they would accept if they believed Mr. Özel were sincere, which they do not.

Opposition Party HQ Stormed in Turkey as Leader Defies Court Order

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