Seven mayors imprisoned by the Turkish authorities switched allegiance to a new opposition party as it opened its founding congress Saturday, with the 2028 presidential elections in its sights.
Ozgur Ozel launched the Yeni Party (New Party) in July, two months after a court ruling removed him as head of what was then the main opposition CHP.
Dozens of CHP lawmakers followed him, transforming his new party into the main opposition.
At the party's opening congress, Ozel read out a letter from seven mayors, six of them from districts of Istanbul, in which they announced that they too had switched allegiance to his party.
"We are imprisoned... because we did not surrender the authority given to us by the nation at the ballot box to political tutelage," they said in their letter.
In the face of political persecution, "we have decided to continue our political struggle" in Ozel's Yeni party, the mayors added.
Turkey's opposition is battling an increasing crackdown, with a barrage of arrests and lawsuits targeting mayors and elected officials widely seen as political.
The crackdown on the opposition came after the CHP, then under Ozel's leadership, won a resounding victory in the March 2024 local elections, trouncing the ruling AKP.
Among those arrested are 29 mayors, including the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, considered one of the leading electoral opponents to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"We have elected mayors, council members, bureaucrats, and brothers and sisters in various prisons" across Turkey, Ozel said in his conference speech.
"Those who lost at the ballot box showed disrespect for the nation's decision," he added.
"Instead of engaging in political competition with us, they tried to attack us, intimidate us, and use state power."
Nevertheless, he promised: "No injustice goes unpunished. No suffering, no sorrow is in vain."
Ozel also set out the party's priorities, in what looked very like a campaign programme: defence of public institutions; the independence of the judiciary; freedom of the press and proposals for a housing policy.
And he denounced what he called "this rotten, decrepit, arrogant regime", insisting that it was on its last legs.
"Erdogan is a representative of the old," he added. "The old must go, it must change. The tired one must step aside."
Erdogan, 72, has said he intends to run for office again in the 2028 presidential election. He has been in power since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president.
dla/jj/rlp
