Political Crisis In Turkey? Police Storm Opposition Headquarters After Leaders Refuse To Leave

Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of Turkey’s main opposition party in Ankara on Sunday after party leaders refused to leave the building. The standoff began after a court removed the party’s elected leader and restored the former opposition chief defeated by President Erdogan in 2023.

Police used tear gas, shields and rubber bullets to enter the headquarters of the Republican People’s Party, known as the CHP. Turkish opposition figures called the move a “judicial coup” and accused Erdogan’s government of using the courts and police to cripple its biggest political rival.

For more than 20 years, Turkish politics has been dominated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AKP party, an Islamist-rooted nationalist movement. Opposing him is the CHP, Turkey’s main opposition party and the political movement founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern secular Turkey. 

Turkish riot police fired tear gas and forced their way into the main opposition party's headquarters to evict its ousted leadership, deepening a crisis at the heart of Turkey's democracy https://t.co/Riv9nLhYiGpic.twitter.com/qwhLSVb7i3

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2026

For years, the CHP repeatedly lost elections to Erdogan under longtime leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. But after Kilicdaroglu’s 2023 defeat, the party replaced him with younger leader Ozgur Ozel, who led the CHP to major victories in Turkey’s 2024 municipal elections and transformed it from a weakened opposition party into what many saw as Erdogan’s most serious political threat in years.

The crisis began last week when a Turkish appeals court annulled the CHP’s 2023 leadership election, citing “alleged irregularities.” The ruling removed Ozel as party leader and reinstated former CHP chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu. 

Ozel refused to recognize the ruling and remained inside CHP headquarters with senior party officials and supporters. Turkish media reported that the standoff lasted three days before police entered the building Sunday morning. Reports from Turkish outlet Bianet said officers broke through barriers and forced their way floor by floor through the building.

“This is a judicial coup,” Ozel said during the standoff, accusing Erdogan’s government of trying to remove the opposition through the courts after failing to defeat it politically.

At one point, Ozel tore up an official communiqué delivered to him and declared: “They destroyed the father’s hearth for this,” a common CHP reference to Ataturk and the party he founded more than a century ago. 

After police entered the building Sunday, Ozel and his supporters left the headquarters and marched toward the Turkish Parliament building in Ankara. “CHP is in the streets from now on,” Ozel said as supporters chanted slogans outside the headquarters.

The confrontation also drew renewed attention to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, widely viewed as Erdogan’s strongest potential challenger. Imamoglu has faced mounting legal pressure and imprisonment in recent years, which opposition figures say is part of a broader crackdown on politicians capable of seriously threatening Erdogan politically.

For many opposition supporters, Sunday’s events marked a major escalation in the struggle. What began as a court dispute over an internal party election ended with riot police entering the headquarters of the opposition party. Opposition figures warned that the crisis now goes beyond Ozgur Ozel or the CHP leadership itself and centers on whether Erdogan’s opponents can still freely organize, choose their own leaders and realistically compete for power inside Turkey’s political system.