Main opposition New Party (YP) Chair Özgür Özel barely restrained himself on Tuesday as he hit back at his critics for picking Cemil Tugay as mayor of the opposition stronghold of Izmir.

In an address to his party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Özel said he wished he had not nominated "that namussuz” back when he was the chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), using a Turkish insult which means "dishonest,” but the severity also amounts to a certain curse word starting with B in English. Tugay, who quit the CHP last summer, joined the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) last week, prompting a wave of condemnation both from the YP and CHP. The CHP has blamed Özel for picking him as the candidate in the 2024 municipal elections while there were better candidates.

"Here is your self-criticism. I wish my hand was broken after I signed the papers to approve the candidacy of this namussuz,” Özel told fellow lawmakers, using a Turkish saying.

Tugay is among dozens of mayors to join the AK Party since 2024, and most of them were reportedly handpicked by Özel as candidates in elections two years ago. This played into the hands of the CHP, now led by Özel’s predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, which taps into every opportunity to lay the blame for the party’s failure on Özel. Özel branded Tugay as a traitor, adding that it would not be the first, "nor the last.” He also pledged that the YP would win the next municipal election in Izmir.

CHP ‘robbed’

Özel’s associates, in the meantime, are also accused of siphoning off the cash owned by the party. Media reports say that Özel instructed a bank where the party’s bank account is to pay a refund of TL 57,000 ($1,155) for dozens of lawmakers of the party, as part of an early deal with the bank where lawmakers volunteered to donate a portion of their salaries. Some lawmakers, on the other hand, claimed that they were unaware of the withdrawal of the cash, and Özel and his associates apparently forged their signatures for the withdrawal. The amount of the cash the Özel camp took with them to the YP was more than TL 5 million and recorded as a "donation” to the new party.

Mehmet Sevigen, former secretary-general of the CHP, told the Sabah newspaper that it was a major scandal. "They obviously plotted this robbery,” he said. Sevigen noted that Özel’s supporters also "looted” CHP offices across Türkiye as they were evacuating the buildings when a court verdict ordered Özel to hand over the chairmanship of the party to Kılıçdaroğlu last May.