Riot police in Türkiye fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a rally called by ousted opposition leader Ozgur Ozel Tuesday, days after a court dismissed him from office. The protest in Izmir came two days after riot police battered their way into the main opposition CHP's headquarters in the capital Ankara, firing tear gas and beating party members before throwing them out, Ozel told AFP on Sunday. The dramatic scenes followed a shock court ruling on Thursday that overturned a 2023 party primary that elected Ozel. It was the latest in a string of moves against the CHP, Türkiye's oldest political party, which scored a major political win over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP in 2024 local elections and has been rising in the polls. Since the court ruling, the party has been in chaos. Ozel called the lunchtime rally in Izmir as Türkiye was poised to shut down for the four-day Eid al-Fitr holiday, which begins on Wednesday. Ahead of the rally, the governorate ordered the closure of the city's central Cumhuriyet Square, deploying a large number of riot police with water cannon trucks who tried to break up the flag-waving crowd, Turkish media reported. "President Ozgur, free Türkiye!" they shouted in scenes broadcast live on TV. - 'Let's compete' - Thursday's shock court ruling overturned the 2023 party primary that elected Ozel, ordering his defeated rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a lackluster ineffective politician, to resume his position as CHP leader. In Izmir, thousands of chanting demonstrators waved flags as Ozel addressed the crowd from the top of a bus, urging Kilicdaroglu to agree to a party congress "immediately" so members could choose their leader. "Bring whoever you want as a delegate and let's compete," he said, directly challenging Kilicdaroglu to hold a party primary "within a week or two" of Eid al-Fitr which ends Saturday. The ousting of CHP's elected leadership was "not an internal matter for the party," he said. "Anyone who sees it that way is deceiving the people... this is between the people and Erdogan," Ozel said. "The issue is about stopping a party that is on the march toward ultimate power." The court case concerned allegations of vote-buying at the 2023 primary, but was thrown out by an Ankara court in October for lack of substance only to be overturned on appeal. The assault on the CHP began in earnest with the jailing of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's main political rival and the party's presidential candidate, on charges widely seen as political. "Erdogan has lost all restraint," Ozel told AFP late Sunday. "Just as he imprisoned the presidential candidate who could defeat him, he is now effectively shutting down the political party that could defeat him," he said. "Türkiye has ceased to be a modern democratic republic and has turned into a one-man regime."
