A Turkish court has upheld this Thursday the dismissal of Ozgur Ozel, current leader of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), a resolution that threatens to open a new front of internal tensions in the formation.
The Ankara court of appeals has invalidated the results of the congress in which Ozel was elected president due to alleged irregularities in the process, although the CHP still has the possibility to appeal the ruling, according to information disseminated by the Anatolia news agency.
The pronouncement comes after a Turkish first-instance court initially concluded that the lawsuit lacked sufficient basis. With Thursday's decision, the path is cleared to remove Ozel from leadership, which would pass to the former CHP president Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
After the ruling became known, Ozel posted a video of one of his rallies on social media, without issuing an official statement for now, while the party leadership has reiterated that it will not comply with the resolution, which it has labeled "illegal," and has called on all members to position themselves against it.
For his part, Kilicdaroglu has stated that the CHP "is not a battlefield for the pursuit of personal ambitions" and has asked that the sentence not become a "cause of division" internally, but rather an "opportunity." "I invite everyone to serenity and shared common sense," he pointed out.
The suspended mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, has assured that the CHP will stand up "against political coups" driven by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "through the judiciary."
"The decision made is null and void. It is not just a blow against the CHP; it is a blow against Turkey, against democracy, against the Republic. It is destroying the constitutional order. The matter is serious. It is above parties. It is time for the nation to defend Turkey," he warned.
The opposition, with the CHP as its main reference, has repeatedly denounced that the Executive uses the judicial system to silence critical voices, with Imamoglu's case being one of the most significant examples due to his prominence in national politics and his chances of challenging Erdogan for the presidency at the polls.
Imamoglu was dismissed in March 2025 and sent to prison for alleged corruption offenses, in addition to being stripped of his university degree, an essential requirement to aspire to the head of state. The leader, prosecuted in several cases, gained notoriety throughout the country after his victory in the 2019 municipal elections, when he assumed the mayorship of Istanbul.