The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara launched an investigation on Monday into remarks of Özgür Özel, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), in which he openly threatened President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Prosecutors accuse Özel of insulting the president, incitement to committing a crime and threat against a public official.
Özel, who is known for his scathing rhetoric against Erdoğan and the government, upped the ante on July 5. Speaking after a meeting of his party, Özel criticized the government for the detention of three mayors of his party on charges of corruption. The CHP claims the charges are politically motivated.
In his July 5 remarks, Özel insulted Erdoğan and called for an early election. He boasted that he was able to “gather 1 million people on the streets,” referring to protests against the arrest of the CHP mayor for Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, in March. “I know the time I will invite people to the streets. You cannot dare to make me do it. You should come to your senses. Otherwise, you will see what happened in Egypt is happening here,” referring to the Arab Spring protests that led to the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak.
After rallies for the release of Imamoğlu, Erdoğan has accused the CHP leader of inciting riots as some protesters clashed with police. Although Özel stopped short of a call for a coup, he said, “The nation would bring ballot boxes before you.”
Özel pursued a relatively less belligerent discourse toward the government when he was first elected as CHP chair in 2023. Following the municipal vote in 2024, he even met Erdoğan twice, a rare occasion for Türkiye’s oldest party, whose previous leader adopted a harsh tone against the president. But this brief period of “normalization” continued with unprecedented remarks amounting to insults against Erdoğan. As a lawmaker, the CHP chair has immunity against criminal prosecution, a period that ends if he fails to get re-elected to Parliament in the next election scheduled for 2028.
His recent remarks drew the ire of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The party’s deputy chair and spokesperson, Ömer Çelik, said in a social media post on July 5 that Özel was representing a party “which is a brand in aggression toward multi-party political life,” referring to CHP’s stance before and after the first truly democratic elections in 1950.
“Our president has always scored political victories through votes. Özel disrespects him and claims Erdoğan is afraid of running in elections. This is purely political ignorance,” Çelik said. He said Özel’s remarks, threatening legitimate democratic ground, should be rendered null and void.
Through his lawyers, Erdoğan filed a separate lawsuit for compensation against Özel for his remarks targeting him. Erdoğan asks the court for compensation of TL 500,000 ($12,500).
