The New Party (YP), which has recently been rocked by bribery allegations and resignations, will hold its first ordinary convention on Saturday. Chairperson Özgür Özel and his team are preparing to amend the party bylaws they themselves drafted ahead of the party’s first convention, seeking to hold the elections for the party assembly and the High Disciplinary Board through a closed-list system rather than an open-list one.

The party chairpersonship election will be held on the first day of the convention. Özel, who has been accused of receiving bribes from former Uşak Mayor Özkan Yalım, former Antalya Mayor Muhittin Böcek and Erzincan lawmaker Mustafa Sarıgül to approve their candidacy while he was the chair of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) until May, will run as the sole candidate.

Approximately 1,200 delegates are expected to cast their votes in the elections. Elections for the party assembly and the disciplinary board will take place on the second day of the convention in the capital Ankara. Although the party bylaws stipulate an open-list system, preparations are reportedly underway to hold the elections using a closed-list system. Under the bylaws, the party can switch to a closed-list system if at least one-tenth of the total number of convention members submit a written proposal.

Under the closed-list system, delegates either accept or reject the entire list of candidates drawn up by the party chair. Under the open-list system, however, candidates acting independently of or in opposition to the party chair can also secure seats on the party assembly if they receive enough votes.

Özel is reportedly seeking a closed-list election both to prevent changes to his proposed list and to ensure the results are finalized more quickly. Of the 150-member party assembly, 77 seats will be allocated to the parliamentary group.

Moves to introduce a closed-list system in the elections have also stirred political speculation within the party. Since YP was established, Özel and his team have reportedly secured full control over the party, while the Ekrem Imamoğlu faction, aligned with the former Istanbul mayor who is now jailed pending trial on corruption charges, has been pushed into the background. Imamoğlu was announced as a future presidential candidate of the CHP by Özel after he was arrested in March 2025 and sided with Özel after he split from the CHP, though he still remains in the party. Imamoğlu has long been a powerful figure within CHP and worked with Özel against then chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the 2023 intraparty vote in CHP. Against this backdrop, it is alleged that the closed-list system may have been preferred out of concern that the İmamoğlu camp could otherwise break Özel’s proposed party assembly list.

Attention will also focus on whether key party figures such as Burhanettin Bulut, Turan Taşkın Özer, Veli Ağbaba and Özgür Karabat, whose names have been mentioned in corruption and bribery allegations in the corruption case involving Imamoğlu and Aziz İhsan Aktaş, a businessman who confessed to bribing his way into multiple municipalities run by CHP, will secure seats on the new party assembly.

Burhanettin Bulut and Özgür Karabat were accused of receiving bribes in the Aziz İhsan Aktaş indictment. The indictment alleged that Bulut received $1 million in bribes, while Karabat received TL 5 million. Turan Taşkın Özer, who is close to Imamoğlu, is also among the suspects in the corruption case involving Istanbul municipality staff and businesspeople. Ağbaba, meanwhile, faces numerous allegations, including soliciting bribes from party members in exchange for mayoral candidacies, establishing a delegate-vote trading network, arranging tailor-made public tenders in several provinces and facilitating appointments through favoritism.