Turkey’s biggest opposition party is pursuing a multipronged strategy of grassroots rallies and political alliances to defeat president Recep Tayyip Erdogan after the arrest of its star campaigner and presumptive presidential candidate, the group’s leader said.
The arrest last month of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whom polls show beating Erdogan in an election, sparked Turkey’s largest street protests in a decade and a market panic. It was also a major setback for the opposition’s hopes of unseating Erdogan, who has ruled the country for 22 years.
Ozgur Ozel, head of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, told the Financial Times it had “no plan” to substitute Imamoglu but recognised that it needed to sustain momentum without him after the initial explosion of popular discontent.
This includes organising regular demonstrations and a signature drive to translate anger over Imamoglu’s arrest into a cause that resonates broadly with voters. Ozel also suggested he was open to forming an opposition coalition of the sort that narrowly failed to defeat Erdogan’s AK party and its partners in 2023.
“As elections approach we’re not closed to alliances with other parties. To defeat Erdogan we need the support of all democrats,” Ozel said in an interview, stressing that Imamoglu remained the CHP’s candidate for the next presidential vote, currently scheduled for 2028.
But Ozel added that if a government-imposed ban made Imamoglu’s candidacy impossible, “we will determine the most suitable candidate, and carry out a campaign based around Imamoglu’’s campaign for freedom”.
Sitting in his office at CHP’s Ankara headquarters, Ozel (50) exudes the same energy and determination that made him such a galvanising figure in the protests following Imamoglu’s arrest.
Imamoglu was detained on March 21st, just hours after the CHP nominated him as its presidential candidate, on corruption charges he denies. In the days that followed Ozel channelled the anger of tens of thousands of protesters into giant demonstrations, where he decried Imamoglu’s arrest as a politically motivated “coup d’état”.
Rattled by the public uproar, and an investor panic that forced the central bank to burn through over $30 billion of reserves to support the currency, authorities arrested about 2,000 people.
Officials said Imamoglu’s arrest showed that nobody is above the law, while Erdogan called the protests a “dead end” and that Turkey would never “surrender to street terror”.
“We’ve passed the threshold where [Erdogan] can intimidate those who stand against him,” Ozel said.
Ozel’s public role has highlighted the former pharmacist’s political promise and his organisational ability at keeping the CHP energised. “Crisis management and resistance are our business,” he said.
Born in 1974 to two teacher parents in western Turkey, a traditional CHP stronghold, Ozel entered politics as a member of parliament in 2011 after practising as a pharmacist – training he has used to treat his famously raspy voice, the result of a throat operation last year. “Since I’m a pharmacist I use all sorts of treatments,” he said.
Ozel outlined his three-part strategy from a roomy office, lined with portraits of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the nation and the CHP party, while his floppy white cat – called Victory – watched on.
The first part involves a symbolic national drive to collect 30 million signatures, more than Erdogan got in the 2023 presidential vote, calling for Imamoglu’s release and early elections. According to party officials, more than 10 million people have signed so far.
The second strand involves holding a rally every Wednesday in Istanbul, and periodic demonstrations around the country. The first was on Sunday, April 13th, at Samsun, where Ataturk launched Turkey’s war of independence in 1919.
“There are very few examples in the world of how to push back an authoritarian populist leader with peaceful demonstrations and civil protest,” Ozel said. “This will be one.”
The third and most challenging part of the strategy is to translate Imamoglu’s case into a cause that resonates broadly with voters, especially the young, and so maintain pressure on the government.
The recent protests ran the gamut of Turkish society, from left-wing students and right-wing nationalists, to bescarfed young Muslim women and old age pensioners.
But according to a survey carried out last month during one Ankara demonstration, 94 per cent of the protesters were under the age of 35, yet only half said they supported the CHP.
Ozel said he had added youth quotas to the CHP and that half his shadow cabinet were women, compared to “Erdogan’s cabinet, where there’s only one female minister”.
He added that party membership had risen by 800,000 people to two million since he replaced former party chief Kemal Kılıcdaroglu, who led the unsuccessful six-party coalition bid for the presidency in 2023.
“Our goal is to strengthen the party by opening its doors to all democrats,” he stressed.
That includes potential supporters who typically have diametrically opposed interests, such as the Kurds, many of them represented by the DEM party, or nationalist parties like the IYI. “There is no salvation alone,” Ozel said.
Polls since Imamoglu’s arrest suggest the CHP has pulled a few percentage points ahead of Erdogan’s AKP, with the support of about a third of voters. The CHP under Ozel also had more success in last year’s local elections, winning the popular vote and securing landslide victories for the mayoralties of Istanbul and Ankara.
Even so analysts say the opposition has a hard road ahead against a president who has a record as a ruthless political operator. “Whatever you can imagine he [Erdogan] can do it...There are no limits,” Ozel said.
Europe and the US are also courting Turkey for its strategic importance and military strength, and have so far largely turned a blind eye to perceived democratic abuses. “Unfortunately the current global context – Trump, Putin, the war in Syria – has turned Erdogan into someone other leaders want to bargain with,” Ozel said.
Despite the odds Ozel appeared unfazed by the risks. “The best defence is what we are doing now – resisting.”
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
