Nicosia, Cyprus. The Cyprus branch office of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party, the CHP, has backed Ozgur Ozel after a court annulled the results of the party’s 2023 congress and removed him from office.
Support for Ozel
Social media accounts run by the office have continued to repost content published by Ozel alongside their own posts in support of him. The branch’s youth wing chairman, Emre Dizel, also attended a rally held by Ozel in Izmir.
Dizel included a photograph of himself meeting Ozel at Rustem’s bookshop in central Nicosia in his Eid al-Adha message.
Izmir rally
Ozel and several thousand supporters defied Izmir provincial authorities to hold the rally. Riot fences had been erected to block public access to the city’s central Republic Square.
When people tried to gather in the square, police used water cannons to disperse them, and the crowd then moved to nearby Gundogdu Square.
Ozel addressed the gathering from atop a bus lent to him by Muharrem Ince, the CHP’s presidential candidate, who left the party in 2021 before rejoining last year.
Statements from Ozel
Among those attending were 19 mayors, including Izmir mayor Cemil Tugay.
Ozel told the crowd that “the AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the AK Party’s judicial branches acting on his instructions effectively shut down the CHP.”
“If a party is not governed by its members, delegates, and elected officials, if it is governed by whoever the rival party leader wants, then that political party has effectively ceased to exist,” he said.
He added that after last week’s court ruling, “the CHP, which should be a single entity, is currently divided into two at the behest of the palace.”
“One of these is the appointed CHP. The appointed CHP is in the headquarters which was occupied and seized by the police. The other is the elected CHP, and it is here in this square,” he said.