In the few weeks since the jailing of Turkey’s opposition heavyweight Ekrem İmamoğlu, Özgur Özel has become the face of the biggest protests to sweep the country in more than a decade.
Özel was the relatively low-profile head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) until the March 19 detention and subsequent arrest of İstanbul’s mayor, İmamoğlu. Since then, he has been thrust into the limelight, both at home and abroad.
İmamoğlu has long been seen as the only Turkish politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the ballot box, with the CHP electing him as its candidate for the 2028 race on the day he was jailed.
Denouncing the arrest as a politically motivated “coup d’etat,” Özel, who was re-elected party leader on Sunday, has managed to call hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets who have jeered Erdoğan and held signs saying “Government, resign!” and “We will overthrow the Sultan.”
“Hey Erdoğan: we will be on the streets from now on. Be afraid of us!” Özel shouted in his characteristic husky voice, which he appeared to be at the point of losing after days of protest and rousing speeches.
Those have sharpened both his image and that of his party.
Erdoğan has ramped up the rhetoric against the 50-year-old, who took over the CHP in November 2023.
“Turkey will not surrender to street terror,” Erdoğan said, accusing the opposition leader of “grave irresponsibility.”
Erdoğan later attacked the CHP head over calls to boycott Turkish companies seen as close to the government, raising the prospect that Özel could soon face legal sanctions.
Pharmacist turned politician
Özel was born in Manisa, near the Aegean resort city of Izmir, on September 21, 1974 to parents who were teachers.
After earning a pharmacology degree at İzmir’s Ege University, Özel began working as a private pharmacist, later serving as head of Turkey’s pharmacy association. In 2011 he gave it all up to enter politics after being elected to parliament as the CHP’s lawmaker in Manisa.
That western part of the country “represents the more traditional Kemalist CHP base,” said Berk Esen, a political scientist at İstanbul’s Sabancı University, referring to the ideas of Turkey’s secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
“In that sense, he is very much in touch with the CHP base and he knows the party quite well,” Esen added.
In 2014 Özel pushed for parliament to investigate work-related mining accidents, but his efforts were thwarted by Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Just a few months later, Turkey suffered its worst-ever mining disaster when 301 people died in a blast at a mine in Soma.
As well as mining safety, he also has served on CHP committees for monitoring prison conditions and the problems facing university students.
By 2018 he was elected head of the party’s parliamentary group, where his direct and outspoken diatribes caught wider attention.
“He may not be a charismatic orator, but he’s eloquent, articulate and highly critical of the government, and this strategy works,” Esen said.
In May 2023 the CHP lost a bitterly fought presidential campaign to Erdoğan, widely seen as the most important vote in generations, leaving the party in crisis.
Six months later the CHP’s annual congress voted to replace long-term leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu — at the helm since 2010 — with Özel, who won by 812 votes to 536.
With the backing of CHP heavyweight İmamoğlu, Özel said he wanted to “write a new story and reshape Turkish politics.” In electing him voters wanted “to open the door to a new political climate in our country,” he said.
Targeted by legal probes
“The two men share the task: İmamoğlu is preparing for the presidency, while Özel holds the party and the parliamentary group,” said CHP lawyer Ahmet Kiraz.
“Both are moving forward together with the same vision of power, which foresees a strengthened role for parliament,” he added.
Just months after he took over, the CHP won a resounding victory in the March 2024 local elections, retaining control of Istanbul and Ankara while expanding into some Anatolian provinces previously considered Erdoğan territory.
Since then, the party and its leadership have been targeted by a growing number of legal investigations, culminating in İmamoğlu’s arrest last month.
Observers say it is too early to consider Özel as a presidential candidate.
But if İmamoğlu is prevented from running, Özel “will be the best placed,” said Kiraz.
“He has the stature to be an emergency candidate. He knows how to bring people together,” the lawyer added.
Esen said that Özel “has so far defended the party quite well against Erdoğan’s judicial interventions.”
As long as Özel keeps up his current course, “he will become a very formidable politician,” Esen added.
© Agence France-Presse