Brave New whirl: Turkey’s opposition overhaul
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What is the opening overview of today’s episode and who are the guests?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer.
Today on the show, a surrogacy scandal continues to royal German politics, and traditional career advice falls short for Gen Z.
First up though.
Turkey's president Rechep Tayyip Erdogan has long claimed that his Justice and Development or AC party deserved new opposition. Well, on Friday he got his wish.
Ugin Sethil Michil Bashkan Larimzla.
Oscar Ozell had been leader of the Republican People's Party, but in May he was shunted aside in suspicious circumstances. So he started a new party, called the New Party.
How did former CHP leader Ozan Özçelik create the New Party and why does Erdogan want it?
On a yet kisinea manetetti, milete killer misde, eka dumna atarakuri.
As an opening move, it's gone surprisingly well. Problem is, as recent history has shown again and again, Mr. Erdogan doesn't really want a credible opposition.
At a stroke, Ozel has redrawn Turkey's political map. Piotr Zelebsky is our Turkey correspondent. At least ninety one MPs from the Republican People's Party or CHP. The party Ozel headed until May, have defected to his new party already, making it the second biggest in parliament. The CHP had been Turkey's biggest opposition party since 2002. That honor now belongs to the new party. Polls suggest Ozelle has taken with him not only CHP grandees, but its voters as well. Some put support for the new party at over thirty percent ahead of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party.
So before we get into the new party, let's talk about how we got where we are. What's the backdrop in which all of this is happening? Ered
one. Erdogan and his Justice and Development, or AC party, have led Turkey for the past quarter century. They swept to power in 2002, with Erdogan becoming Prime Minister in 2003 and President in 2014. The CHP had been until the emergence of the new party, the country's main opposition from that very moment. Meaning from 2002 onwards. Erdogan has already extended his time in office once through constitutional changes he pushed through in 2017. This time around, to give himself a shot at another term, he is widely expected to ask Parliament to bring forward the coming presidential elections, officially scheduled for 2028, to next year. And the courts, Have already begun paving the path to another term in office for Turkey's leader or his successor, should Erdogan, who turned 73 next year, be unable to run.
The man acknowledged by pollsters as the candidate best placed to take on Erdogan in the coming presidential elections, Ekrem Imamolu, was arrested in March of last year on trumped up. corruption charges and now faces roughly two thousand three hundred years in prison.
So in a sense, a more effective opposition party was needed. I mean what is mister Ozell's plan here?
To be seen whether the new party becomes a more effective opposition than the CHP. For now, obviously, it has positioned itself as the main opposition to Erdogan's AC party. It is critical of Erdogan's concentration of power, but it's still unclear whether the new party can become more than a clone of the CHP, the party from which it broke away.
What is the historical backdrop of Erdogan’s rule and the upcoming 2028 election?
Now the CHP. Is a secular social democratic party, for the new party to inherit the CHB base will probably be relatively easy. And poll suggests this has happened already. What is going to be more difficult is for the new party to draw in voters from the center right, to draw in some secular nationalists and some Kurdish voters. And it does not appear to have done so yet. Aaron
Powell Well, I guess that's Mr Ozell's job now that he's got this new party under him and all this momentum, but what do you expect from him? Who is he?
Well, Urzal is not new to politics at all, had been a longtime member of the CHP before his resignation. He took over the party in 2023 after general elections that the CHP was expected to do well in, but in which it badly underperformed. He headed the CHP for three years until May, when he was deposed by court. Court decree. His biggest achievement came in 2024 when the CHP prevailed over the AC party in local elections, en route to its best result in about half a century.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the opening overview of today’s episode and who are the guests?
0:03–1:10
2
How did former CHP leader Ozan Özçelik create the New Party and why does Erdogan want it?
1:10–4:19
3
What is the historical backdrop of Erdogan’s rule and the upcoming 2028 election?
4:19–7:23
4
Can the New Party become a credible opposition to the AKP and what are its poll numbers?
7:23–11:24
5
Why is the CHP collapsing and what does that mean for Turkish politics?
11:24–15:11
6
How did Jens Spahn’s surrogacy scandal trigger a German government reshuffle?
15:11–20:11