Beleagured Turkish opposition attempts to regroup with new party

ANKARA, July 24 - Turkish opposition leader Ozgur Ozel and 91 breakaway lawmakers applied on Friday to launch a new political party, 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.

New Party would emerge as the second-largest behind Erdogan's ruling conservative AK Party, which has 277 of 600 in parliament, but reduced from the secular CHP's previous total of 135 lawmakers.

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 submitted the application. "We are leaving an occupied party behind."

Ozel and the 91 lawmakers resigned this week from the CHP, the party of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

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. REUTERS