Top ally of Turkey’s Erdogan backs state funding for Ozel’s breakaway party
Devlet Bahceli’s suggestion exposes a more nuanced position within the country’s governing alliance over the ongoing legal crackdown against Turkey’s main opposition.
ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top political ally, Devlet Bahceli, suggested Thursday that state funding earmarked for Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) should be shared with a new party planned by its ousted former leader, Ozgur Ozel.
A court ruling in May annulled the CHP's 2023 leadership congress, removing Ozel as chairman. The order effectively reinstated the party’s former leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who led the CHP from 2010 to 2023 and lost a succession of elections against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP. On Tuesday, Ozel announced that he and his allies would leave the party and establish a new political movement.
“Of the 1.815 billion liras paid to the CHP from the Treasury in 2026, it would be ethical to transfer a share in proportion to the number of lawmakers who leave the CHP and join the new party,” Nationalist Movement Party leader Bahceli told reporters in parliament.
Under Turkish law, annual Treasury assistance is distributed according to the vote share parties received in the most recent parliamentary election, with parties required to have secured at least 3% of valid votes to qualify.
