Özgür Özel, the leader of Türkiye’s main opposition New Party (Yeni Parti, or YP), secured his position in an uncontested nationwide leadership primary on Nov. 8 ahead of the movement's first ordinary convention scheduled for mid-November.
Party members cast their ballots across all 81 provinces at approximately 3,000 polling stations set up in nearly 900 districts. Citizens who had registered as party members by Nov. 5 were eligible to participate in the vote, in which Özel ran as the sole candidate.
New Party lawmaker Ensar Aytekin announced after polls closed at 5 p.m. local time that the primary process was complete and that Özel had received all valid votes to begin his new term with the direct backing of the party's membership.
Shift to direct member voting
The primary is the culmination of an internal election calendar that began in late August to select district and provincial administrations. Unlike traditional Turkish political parties, where local and national leaders are chosen strictly by a smaller group of elected convention delegates, the New Party introduced a two-stage model allowing rank-and-file members to vote directly for leadership candidates prior to formal conventions.
After casting his ballot at the party's provincial headquarters in Ankara, Özel said the mechanism was designed to establish direct intra-party democracy.
"We have come to a point where, starting with district chairs and continuing with provincial chairs, the party chair is now directly determined by members," Özel told reporters.
He also outlined the party's grass-roots strategy for upcoming national elections, noting that the movement is organizing a 250,000-member volunteer campaign network to canvass voters door-to-door across the country.
From the CHP split to main opposition
The upcoming convention on Nov. 14–15 marks a key institutional milestone for the New Party, which was founded less than four months ago following an unprecedented upheaval in Türkiye's opposition.
Özel had originally been elected chairman of the Republican People's Party (CHP)—Türkiye's oldest political party, founded by modern republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk—in November 2023, defeating longtime leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Under Özel's leadership, the CHP won a major victory in the March 2024 municipal elections, outpolling President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) nationwide for the first time.
However, in May 2026, an appeals court annulled the results of the 2023 CHP congress over alleged procedural irregularities, removing Özel from his post and reinstating Kılıçdaroğlu. Özel and his allies denounced the ruling as a politically motivated judicial intervention aimed at paralyzing the opposition, while the government maintained that the courts acted independently regarding an internal party dispute.
After Kılıçdaroğlu declined demands to hold a new leadership convention, Özel resigned from the CHP on July 24 alongside 90 other members of parliament to establish the New Party. Because the mass defection brought its parliamentary group to 91 seats in the 600-member Grand National Assembly—surpassing the 44 seats left in the CHP and trailing only the ruling AKP's 277 seats—the New Party immediately became Türkiye's official main opposition party without having contested an election.
Agenda for the Ankara convention
More than 1,000 delegates will gather in Ankara on Nov. 14–15 for the two-day ordinary congress to formally ratify the leadership and elect the party's central governing and disciplinary bodies.
Ahead of the vote, Özel unveiled a 17-point work program detailing the party's roadmap for economic policy, judicial reform and election preparedness, alongside plans for its first 100 days in government should it win the next general election. According to Turkish media reports, Özel also proposed expanding the Party Assembly and restructuring it into three specialized councils focusing on legislative work, executive policy and grass-roots organization.
