Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
The Constitutional Court ended discussions about the Yeni Party’s name, but headquarters-backed candidates keep winning in the districts and provinces despite the promises to end the old CHP habit of central control.
We’ve borrowed our headline “The Name of Sarıgül” from “The Name of the Rose,” the best-selling novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco.
“Flowers bloom on the mountains of Izmir / The golden sun scatters gold thread there / The routed enemies all flee like the wind / Long live Mustafa Kemal Pasha, long live! Your name will be inscribed on a jeweled stone.”
The Constitutional Court will consider on Sept. 29 a request to annul the name of Yeni Party and remove it from the registry of political parties.
After years of demonizing rhetoric against LGBTQ+ people, Turkish authorities launched a nationwide operation named 'My Family Is Safe,' detaining hundreds of people from civil society. The crackdown continued with arrests and access bans targeting dissidents, media outlets and civil society organizations' X accounts, widening to include broader opposition voices who spoke out against the operations. The main charge in the investigation was 'obscenity.'
Two parties that once stood as rivals, both claiming the legacy of Necmettin Erbakan — the founding leader of political Islam in Turkey under the name of National View— are continuing merger talks.
A financial crimes operation targeting the Süleymancı religious sect, led by Alihan Kuriş, whose given name is Ali Erhan Kuriş, 46, was carried out across 17 provinces. Detention orders were issued for 49 people, including Kuriş.
The İYİ Party was the only party to vote as a bloc against the framework law on the Kurdish peace process. Its instincts on the nationalist right are already well known. But before turning to the party, it is worth dwelling for a moment on its chair. Let us begin with his name: Müsavat.
Rapper Erol Can Güncü, known by his stage name UZ4Y, was detained on stage while performing in İzmir's Çeşme district and later formally arrested over his lyrics.
Özgür Özel, ousted as CHP chair by a court ruling, is preparing to set up a new party even as legal threats mount against him and his allies. The party is likely to be called Yeni Party (New Party), Özel said. 'We are working on the name and the logo. The name has started to become clear. There is a generally accepted name, while the logo is still being worked on. For now, let's call it 'Yeni Party.' Until there is a new name, let's say Yeni Party,' Özel told SZC TV. 'The statute and the program are being written. The official step will be taken at the end of July or the beginning of August,' Özel told the channel at parliament ahead of a special session marking the 10th anniversary of the failed coup attempt.
Ten years after tanks rolled onto the Bosphorus Bridge and F-16s bombed parliament, Turkey marks the anniversary of the failed July 15 coup attempt with a holiday named 'Democracy and National Unity Day' — in a country more polarized, less democratic and no closer to answering the fundamental questions of that night than it was a decade ago.
Education Minister Yusuf Tekin, no stranger to controversy, has provoked a backlash after announcing a change to the newly updated national school curriculum that renames the War of Independence.