Özgür Özel, the ousted leader of Turkey's main opposition party the CHP (Republican People's Party, founded over a century ago), has announced in parliament that he will establish a new political party, formally breaking with the CHP. A Turkish court ruled in May that the 2023 party congress at which Özel was elected leader was invalid due to alleged irregularities, reinstating former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the 2023 presidential election to President Erdoğan. The move fits a broader pattern of pressure on Turkish opposition figures — human rights organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have described legal proceedings against opposition politicians as politically motivated, with dozens of CHP officials arrested or removed from office in recent years.