Türkiye's opposition split
A court ousted the CHP's elected leader, 91 of its 135 lawmakers walked out to found the New Party, and the state money stayed with the 44 who remained.
On 21 May 2026 a court annulled the CHP congress that had elected Özgür Özel chairman, citing alleged voter fraud, and reinstated his predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Days later police entered the party headquarters to enforce the ruling. On 24 July Özel signed the founding documents of the New Party, Yeni Parti, in Ankara. That same day 91 lawmakers, Özel among them, resigned from the CHP. That took the CHP from 135 seats to 44 and moved the title of main opposition to the new party.
What the May ruling was is itself the dispute. Özel and his supporters saw it as judicial interference in the party's affairs. The government rejects that, calling the case an internal CHP quarrel and the annulment evidence that legal institutions are working. Under Özel the CHP had won Istanbul and Ankara in 2024, the AK Party's worst defeat in more than two decades, and investigations alleging corruption in CHP-run municipalities have since led to dozens of detentions. Istanbul's mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu is jailed pending trial on charges he denies.
Voters ranked the two the same way in the first poll taken since the launch. ORC Research asked 1,920 people across 26 provinces, between 27 and 29 July, which party they would vote for in a general election that Sunday. The AK Party led on 32.5 percent; the New Party came second on 19.4. The CHP, the party Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded, came third on 11.8, behind a party three days old when the fieldwork began. By seats it is now fifth, behind the DEM Party and the MHP.
Money runs the other way. Turkish law gives Treasury funding to parties that took at least 3 percent at a parliamentary election, in proportion to that vote. The New Party has not yet run in a national election, so it receives none and lives on private donations. The AK Party is set to take 2.55 billion lira from the Treasury in 2026 and the CHP 1.82 billion. In its first 48 hours of fundraising the New Party took 182,068,243 lira from 85,975 people.
So the opposition's votes and its state money now sit in different parties. Özel says he will back İmamoğlu as presidential candidate in the next elections. Whether the arrangement survives an election is the open question. Al Jazeera reported that the wider splintering of the opposition could boost Erdoğan's prospects of extending his 23-year rule, a reading it attributed to some observers.
”The New Party was founded by the people, it will be strengthened by the people, and it will be carried to power by the people”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
Al Jazeera, the pro-government Daily Sabah and Türkiye Today report the same numbers where they overlap: 91 lawmakers gone, 44 seats left to the CHP, 277 to the AK Party. All three trace the break to the court ruling rather than to a party vote. Daily Sabah and Türkiye Today both record that main opposition status moved to the New Party, and Daily Sabah reports the CHP's seat loss as flatly as the others do.
Where they split
The disagreement is about what the May ruling was. For Özel's side it is the judiciary reaching into a party, of a piece with the investigations that have detained CHP officials and jailed İmamoğlu. For the government it is an ordinary legal case about a flawed congress, and evidence that democratic and legal institutions are functioning. Both accounts of the court's reasoning are hedged by the outlets carrying them: Al Jazeera says the court cited alleged voter fraud, Turkish Minute that the litigation concerned allegations of vote-buying at the 2023 congress.
What nobody is saying
Add ORC's two figures and the successor parties come to 31.2 percent, against 32.5 for the AK Party. That addition is ours: ORC published the parties separately and no combined figure. None of the sources here gives a CHP poll number from before the split, so we cannot say whether the opposition as a whole has grown or shrunk. What the numbers do show is a split between votes and money. The party polling second draws no Treasury funding, and the party with 1.82 billion lira polls third.
Who says what
Özel presents the new party as built by the public rather than by an apparatus, which is also an argument about where its money comes from. He launched the donation campaign himself, before membership applications could open and while registration with the Supreme Court of Appeals and other state institutions was still going through. He has said he will back İmamoğlu as presidential candidate in the next elections.
”The New Party was founded by the people, it will be strengthened by the people, and it will be carried to power by the people”The New Party was founded by the people, it will be strengthened by the people, and it will be carried to power by the people
Ceylan's job in the campaign is to make the numbers public and to promise they will keep being made public. On Turkish Minute's account private donations are what finances a party with no Treasury allocation. Announcing 85,975 donors in 48 hours is therefore a claim about breadth of support, not only a receipt for the cash.
”We will continue to transparently disclose information about the donations.”We will continue to transparently disclose information about the donations.
The government rejects the claim that it intervened in the judiciary. On its account the legal case that removed Özel was an internal dispute inside the CHP, and the annulment was evidence that democratic and legal institutions were functioning. It is Al Jazeera that reports this position; no named minister is quoted.
Our coverage
- First poll since the opposition split: AKP 32.5, Yeni Parti 19.4, CHP 11.8Sunday, 2 August 2026
- Özel's New Party raises 182 million lira from nearly 86,000 donors in 48 hoursFriday, 31 July 2026
- Türkiye's opposition splits: Yeni Parti takes 91 MPs, leaving the CHP with 44Tuesday, 28 July 2026