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Ozgur Ozel, the suspended chairman of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), said Wednesday in Manisa that there would be no new party and no mass resignations.
He called on CHP members to "remain in the party and fight," while simultaneously issuing his sharpest challenge yet to restored CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, demanding that the general chairman be chosen by all 2 million party members and that a congress be called 15 days after the Eid holiday.
"We have no intention of founding a new party. We will stand by Ataturk's party and fight," Ozel said after performing Eid prayers at Hatuniye Mosque in Manisa.
He called on all party members not to resign, not to lose hope, and not to leave: "I hear that almost all the mayors in the Black Sea region are saying 'let us resign and come to your side.' Please don't do that. No one should resign from their party, no one should give up on their party. We will resolve this problem somehow."
Ozel put forward a specific proposal for resolving the leadership question by stating, "I want a leadership election with 2 million CHP members, with ballot boxes set up at all 973 district and 81 provincial party offices, the Sunday 15 days after Eid."
"If I get below 85% of the votes from our members, if I get 80%, I will not accept the role. Let a competitor come and we will compete. Whoever wins, I will raise their hand and follow them for the rest of my life," he added.
He said the path to a congress was clear and the party could move fast.
"If Kilicdaroglu takes the congress decision on June 1, we will have no grievance with him or anyone supporting him. The matter is about making the party the government," Ozel said.
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Ozel said he hoped Kilicdaroglu "will not make this mistake, will not turn this court ruling into a seizure of will, will not attempt to govern a party he did not come to through election. If he does call the congress, that is the right path and we can get there quickly."
He said 125 members of parliament, including 10 who had previously supported Kilicdaroglu, were all calling for elections. "Everyone is saying: hold an election," Ozel noted.
He framed the nullity ruling as a "coup attempt" against CHP's leadership.
"While three of our congresses had already been held, while a string of slanders are collapsing in court, someone tried to change the party's leadership. This is a political trauma in our lives," Ozel said.
He added that the court ruling was a "milestone" and called on party members not to hold past positions against those who joined after the ruling: "Anyone who came to the party after the nullity decision is our sibling, our fellow party member."
According to the pro-opposition media outlet Sozcu, citing CHP parliamentary sources, Kilicdaroglu submitted a petition to the Grand National Assembly leadership seeking to invalidate Ozel's election as parliamentary group chairman.
The petition is reportedly intended to prevent Ozel from presiding over the post-Eid group meeting.
Ozel pushed back, saying the Speaker of Parliament had confirmed that all procedures were in order and that Ozel's group chairmanship had been duly registered on the parliament website.
"There is no change in the situation," Ozel said. He also noted that Kilicdaroglu, as a non-MP, was legally ineligible to serve as group chairman regardless.
Meanwhile, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli, in an interview with Turkgun newspaper, said that September 9, the date of the CHP's founding, could be an appropriate date for a congress.
Bahceli said what happened during the enforcement of the court ruling "was not befitting of CHP or of our democracy" and that the events had created unfair negative perceptions of Türkiye both domestically and internationally.
"MHP's expectation is not a divided CHP but a unified, cohesive CHP that has been cleansed of its burdens and serves Türkiye and the Turkish nation," Bahceli said.
He urged CHP to begin a "purification and settling" process, renew its membership base, eliminate those implicated in wrongdoing through party discipline mechanisms, and then hold congress at the district, provincial, and finally national level, with September 9 as a possible date.
"Going forward, Mr. Kemal Kilicdaroglu will, as normal, fulfill the requirements of the court ruling and of being general chairman," he said.
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