Özgür Özel, chairperson of the New Party (YP), which he founded after parting ways with the Republican People’s Party (CHP), lashed out at Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the incumbent chair of his former party. In an interview with broadcaster Koza TV on Tuesday, Özel, who was photographed warmly shaking hands with Kılıçdaroğlu at an event on Sept. 2, put away pleasantries as he talked about the latter at length.
Özel dismissed Kılıçdaroğlu’s earlier remarks about a potential future alliance and said the YP would not ally with "an illegitimate administration.”
In an interview on Tuesday, Kılıçdaroğlu had said that his party may ally with the YP in the next election. The veteran politician, who was branded a "traitor” by YP supporters after he was reinstated to his post by a court ruling, told Euronews that they were open to supporting the YP’s presidential candidate, former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, if he is eligible to run in the next election.
"Twenty-four hours is a very long time in politics,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, quoting former President Süleyman Demirel. "Political relations should be based on the country’s interests. Politics have no room for hostility,” he said regarding the possibility of an alliance with the YP, whose members fiercely resisted Kılıçdaroğlu’s return to the CHP chair.
"We stand with the opposition, but only with legitimate ones,” Özel was quoted as saying Wednesday. He branded the Kılıçdaroğlu administration an "appointed apparatus of the government.” Özel lost his post last May when a court ruled to annul his chairpersonship in connection with a criminal case in which Özel’s associates are accused of bribing delegates to vote for him against Kılıçdaroğlu. Özel, who resisted the evacuation of CHP headquarters after Kılıçdaroğlu was reinstated three years after his defeat in the intra-party election, has portrayed the verdict as politically motivated. Although he stopped short of doing so, Özel’s supporters in the CHP have openly branded Kılıçdaroğlu a "traitor” for accepting the reinstatement.
Özel said he was open to supporting other opposition parties but underlined that they were all "legitimate actors.”
"If I accept (Kılıçdaroğlu’s alliance proposal), it will give an air of legitimacy to (the current CHP administration),” he said.
He said his handshake with Kılıçdaroğlu was spontaneous and that Kılıçdaroğlu rose from his seat when he saw him and extended his hand in a way he could not refuse. He claimed that the CHP administration under Kılıçdaroğlu had made several proposals to him before May’s court verdict.
"They offered me the post of parliamentary group chair until the next intra-party election. I refused because people would think that we were involved in a plot that would play into the hands of the government,” he said. "I won’t take even one step with a butlan administration,” Özel said, using the Turkish word for absolute nullification.