The head of the parliamentary bloc of the Republican People's Party of Turkey (CHP) and the ousted president by judicial decision Özgür Özal revealed his intention to establish a new party within a maximum period of two weeks, calling on the former leader of the party and returning by judicial decision Kemal Kilicdaroglu to go to the polls in the party to determine the new president.
Özal linked the option of establishing a new party to the failure of the legal path he is currently undergoing to annul the "absolute nullity" rule and go to an emergency congress to re-elect the party's leadership, explaining that the official announcement may come after the end of the two-week deadline allocated to decide on judicial appeals and attempts to hold the extraordinary congress, considering that the party arena will be fully clarified before the start of the judicial holiday on July 20.
Özal said during an interview with the opposition Süzcu TV that the organizational preparations of the new party, temporarily called the "New Party", are going in parallel with the legal battles, explaining that the announcement will only take place if the appeal proceedings are hampered and the emergency congress is not held.
Ozal teams formulate internal regulations in 5 days
According to Turkish sources, Özal's teams are currently working on writing the bylaws, drafting the political program and selecting the founding council, with a plan ready to organize in two-thirds of the Turkish states within just 5 days of the inauguration, in an attempt to show a quick organizational ability that reproduces the opposition bloc outside the parent party.
These developments come against the backdrop of the "absolute nullity" crisis that has hit the Republican People's Party (CHP) since last May, when a Turkish court ruled to cancel the results of the 2023 conference on the grounds of procedural irregularities, which returned Kemal Kilicdaroglu to the presidency of the party and ignited an unprecedented internal conflict.
While Özal's team collected signatures of hundreds of delegates to go to an emergency conference, Kilicdaroglu opted to launch the regular congress track in September, a long process that would allow him to reconstitute the electorate and change delegates loyal to Özal.
This crisis coincides with the prosecutions of the leaders of the "Change" movement, led by the ousted and pretrial mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, which deepens the division within the opposition and puts the party in front of a pivotal moment that may end with the birth of a new party that reshapes the Turkish political scene.
2430 Years in Prison for Ousted Istanbul Mayor
Imamoglu, who has been held in pretrial detention in Silivri Prison since March 2025, is facing one of the most complex judicial campaigns in the history of the Turkish opposition, after his files turned into a package of simultaneous prosecutions in which the Public Prosecution is demanding record penalties exceeding a total of 2,430 years in prison, distributed over four pivotal cases that form the backbone of the battle to remove him politically.
The 4,000-page indictment describes him as "the founder and leader of a criminal organization within the Istanbul municipality," which includes 142 separate charges ranging from bribery, money laundering, fraud and manipulation of public tenders, judicial sources said. Prosecutors are demanding that he be imprisoned for between 828 and 2,430 years, in a mass trial involving 414 defendants from municipal employees and officials.
Istanbul University withdraws Imamoglu's certificate
Imamoglu faces charges of political or military espionage, a charge classified by the opposition and international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, as part of a "political adjustment" aimed at destroying his political future entirely.
He is engaged in a sensitive battle in the file of "forgery of university degree" after the decision of the presidency of Istanbul University to cancel his degree on the grounds of its invalidity, a case that carries a direct political impact, as his conviction means that he will be constitutionally deprived of running for the presidential elections in 2028, due to the constitution's requirement to hold a higher university degree, and the prosecution demands that he be imprisoned for up to 8 years and 9 months.
The ousted Imamoglu is facing a "fool's case" dating back to 2022 when he was accused of insulting members of the Supreme Election Commission after the results of the 2019 Istanbul municipal elections were annulled. He was previously sentenced to two years and seven months in prison with a political ban, and the case is still in the appeal stage.