Breaking News... Özgür Özel holds press conference following Mustafa Bozbey's detention: 'Are you the mafia?'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel held a press conference at the CHP Headquarters in Ankara following the detention process initiated against Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Mustafa Bozbey.

KOSOVO PROGRAM CANCELED

In his statement, Özgür Özel noted that they had planned to travel to Kosovo to support the National Team. However, he stated that this program was canceled due to the developments.

"WE WOKE UP TO A DARK DAY"

Speaking at the press conference, Özel made the following remarks regarding the ongoing process:

We had planned to go to Pristina to support our national team and share in a moment of pride together. However, unfortunately, we woke up to another dark, bad, gloomy, and distressing day today. Today is March 31, 2026. It is the anniversary of the March 31, 2024 elections. It is the second anniversary of the day the Republican People's Party became the 1st party after 47 years and experienced the greatest local election victory ever granted to a party in the history of the Republic of Turkey. It is the anniversary of our great victory as the Republican People's Party, and I went to sleep last night with this prayer.

I closed my eyes with this wish. I hope March 31 brings good luck to the national team and to Turkey. We ended a 47-year longing. It had brought us luck. May the 24-year longing end, I hope.

Let's go tomorrow. Let's win this match together. I went to sleep hoping and praying that our local election victory from 2 years ago would coincide with a national victory this time, and that March 31 would once again be a day of victory. But I woke up to an operation carried out on the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality in the early hours of the morning...

In a moment, I will say a few things about how we evaluate what happened in Bursa and what we think about it from now on. But first, it is useful to remember briefly.

Our success story dates back to November 2023. Actually, in May 2023, on the 14th and 28th, we experienced an election in Turkey where young people, but especially the poor, women, farmers, and laborers, believed in the hope of a change in government, and we failed. We lost, and this loss did not have the effect of just any election loss.

In my definition, the opposition voter experienced an emotional detachment, and a state of trauma emerged. As you all have been following and watching. And that trauma was dragging us into a great disaster. The polls showed it too.

Before the undecided voters were distributed, the party's vote was 13.5 in some, 14 in others. There were answers of 'I will not vote' regarding participation in the election, reactions, protest votes, and here, a team consisting mostly of young people and women in the Republican People's Party said that there was a need for self-criticism. They said there was a need for change.

Turkey said, 'If the Republican People's Party changes, Turkey will change.' We believed this while saying it, and we saw it. We saw retired teachers who stopped going to teachers' houses, party members who passed each other without seeing each other because they walked looking at the ground on the street, and the hopelessness of the youth. And we set out on a path.

"YOUNG PEOPLE CONVINCED OUR DELEGATES WHO WERE SAID TO BE UNCONVINCABLE EVEN BY ATATÜRK"

At first, very few of us believed in this. Then something happened that they called impossible, something they made bets on and staked their professional lives on, and that delegate of ours—the phrase itself belongs to Muharrem İnce.

The phrase was very heavy, and the party overcame that weight. It wasn't us who convinced our delegates, who were said to be impossible to convince even if Atatürk came, but the young people, the women, the mothers. They said, 'Go and give these young people a chance.' A young person living on the 5th floor, perhaps riding the elevator to the 4th floor for the first time in their life, convinced our delegate in the elevator. Barbers convinced delegates while giving haircuts. Grandchildren convinced their grandparents.

Fathers convinced their children, and what was said to be impossible happened, and a change occurred in the party. After the change happened, we turned back and said, in the promise of that change, we said this: Just as Bülent Ecevit succeeded, making the party the first party in all four elections he entered—two local, two general—we will do the same. We said if we couldn't do it, we would quit. The first test was 4 months later, and for 4 months, we tried to nominate as many women as possible, to nominate with the youngest cadres, and to tell people as much as possible that 'change is coming to your city too.'

One day in the elevator, a friend kindly asked—I think it was Mr. Mahir—when asked 'Where will we see the change?', I said, 'You will see it in the İzmir list.' 28 out of 31 mayoral candidates were new. 9 women candidates were selected from all parties throughout the history of the Republic. 8 were elected. 13 out of 14 young people were elected. For the first time, this party sent a message to the ballot box officials while the ballot boxes were being opened, instead of leaving the post or leaving the wet-signed minutes because bad news is intentional: 'You will receive very good news from all over Turkey soon. Don't get happy and disperse. Don't leave the wet-signed minutes.' We knew from the polls before the ballot boxes were opened. When they opened, we saw that Turkey counted the change of the CHP as self-criticism.

It said, 'This is a self-criticism, and I am giving them a chance.' It didn't just give a chance; it gave a first-place finish after 47 years. It gave 65% of the population and 85% of the economy. It said, 'You manage these, let's see. You manage, and I am giving this to you as an important credit for Turkey's hope for change.' I don't know if it was this podium or a similar one. When I appeared before you in the 600-person hall downstairs, and then later, first in the early evening and then when I climbed onto the bus in the garden, I explained this: 'The winner of this election is the nation, there is no loser,' I said. I told the CHP members, 'We have rejoiced enough. Now let's go and sleep. Let's get up early tomorrow. We have work to do,' I said.

I said, 'Use those keys according to this.' Looking into the eyes of all of them. And in the continuation of that election, knowing what would happen to me, I said, 'Since the nation has given the task of being the 1st party, we will act with the responsibility of being the 1st party.' The 1st party cannot fail to call the chairmen of other parties on a holiday. The nation has given you the authority to be in power. It has placed the crown on your head so that your head may become wise. From now on, it falls to us to bow and extend a hand. On the first holiday, I called all the chairmen, including one who had never called us until that day.

"I SAID, 'I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR LOCAL, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR GENERAL GOVERNMENT'"

I said that leaders who do not congratulate me, who belittle our success, and then do not shake hands at a martyr's funeral with the person I told to his face as the leader of Turkey's 1st party, do not suit this country. I said it is not right for the 1st party and the 2nd party not to shake hands, not to meet, not to greet. In your former town of Hacıhaliller in Manisa Şehzadeler, my neighborhood representative and your neighborhood representative attend the same wedding and hold the same funeral. I said we cannot be like this when the nation is like this. You are responsible for the government. I was responsible for the opposition. Today, I am responsible for the local government. You are responsible for the general government. I said we will fulfill this responsibility.

"I WELCOMED AND BID FAREWELL KNOWING I WOULD BE INSULTED"

And I went and visited. I invited. I hosted in this building. Knowing I would be insulted, knowing how much oppression he had committed, I welcomed him at the door and saw him off at the door. I didn't say a single thing about myself. The commander whose cheek was pierced and whose soup leaked from there passed away the other day. His family buried him. I said, 'Let him be.' I said, 'Stop persecuting the Gezi prisoners.' Let the retiree not suffer. Let's join hands. In this country, let us serve these people locally, and you serve generally. Let's defend the national interests of the country together abroad. Let's dismantle and take the F-35s. Let's bring the Eurofighters to this country, I said. I said if people go to each other's funerals in Kayseri, let's be like this in Ankara, in good times and bad. If it were today, if I came to that point again, I would do the same thing again. Because the nation gave me that task that day.

"THEY PRESSED OUR NERVES SO THAT NORMALIZATION WOULD END"

I said, 'I don't want a fight.' I said, 'I want service.' I said, 'I want dialogue.' I said, 'We are not enemies.' Then this was good for all of Turkey. Open and look, all the polls are there. The rate of support for that process. By God, they called it softening. I said, 'This is the normal.' I called it normalization. History is very interested in who names the processes that close. No one calls that period softening. They call it normalization. Because the nation believes that this is its normal.

Then, when the votes seen as entrusted to the CHP in the polls became permanent, when all the processes and dialogues initiated by the Republican People's Party found support at 46% even among AK Party voters, and those who said 'I can vote for the CHP' rose from 25% to 63%, they poked at this. Because this business was working for them. This business was working for the nation. I could have just left. As long as this nation is governed as it wants, as it deserves. I wish they had risked everything and eliminated us instead of hitting democracy. End the normalization, make it end.

Ending it also has a cost. The nation loved it. Of course, the nation loves it. Because one of those two brothers is AK Party, one is MHP, one is CHP in Anatolia. The father-in-law and the son-in-law love a child together. One as a father, one as a spouse, but one can be AK Party and one can be CHP. The nation does not want this fight, this stress, this oppression, and a policy based on constant tension. It doesn't deserve it either. All kinds of tricks, all kinds of attacks. We stood with patience. You experienced them all one by one.

I mean, they declared war 8 days after those who repeated a ritual of 'We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal' after the ceremony, where the first, second, and third graduates of the land, air, and sea were women, who had saluted the mills without sin.

Why? So that normalization would end in the country. They stepped on our corns. They pressed our nerves. What didn't they do? It didn't happen this way, it didn't happen that way. They turned and circled. It's not something that can happen. There is a spirit that writes the constitution. A prosecutor, a judge cannot return to that position if they enter politics, brother. He didn't write the deputy ministership for entering politics.

Because it wasn't there when that constitution was being written. You made up that deputy ministership later. But you told your organization that deputy ministers are technical, these are political. That they would establish the bond between my organization and the ministry. He made the deputy minister who had justice slaughtered in every social case that came to mind, from Demirtaş to Sırrı Süreyya Önder, from Canan Kaftancıoğlu to whatever. He took him and made him the Chief Public Prosecutor of Istanbul. Since that day, since that day, there is no peace in Istanbul. There is no peace in Turkey. There is no such thing as normalization.

While things were normal, look, until the day they first appointed a trustee to the Esenyurt Municipality, neither I nor Erdoğan had a single insult lawsuit against each other. Not a single word of insult. There is criticism. I have held all kinds of rallies. 105 local government rallies, unbelievable. More than 20 thematic rallies. I went to his hometown and held a tea rally. While holding a tea rally, I said, 'Does this base price suit the people of Rize?' in his hometown.

I received more applause from the AK Party members on the periphery than from the CHP. That went to his heart. I also held a pistachio rally in Gaziantep. A rally for teachers who couldn't be appointed, but I didn't say a single bad word.

"ARE YOU THE MAFIA?"

Are you the mafia, damn it? Are you the mafia? An operation on Bursa on the exact anniversary of March 31. Because that is the only metropolitan city where the municipal council majority is in the AK Party. He will appoint the mayor to be obedient. He will take back Bursa. He is doing this on March 31, right? Are you the mafia? What is this defiance against this nation? This nation sends its child to the military if you want. If he comes back in a coffin, he says, 'May the homeland be blessed.' He does whatever you want. He loves his state, but if you pit the state against the nation, he will devastate that state you pitted against him. The FETÖ members tried. We were together that night. You were lining up in front of me. 'Thank you for your attitude, Mr. Özgür.' What was I going to do? Was I going to leave the parliament I established to the FETÖ members? Was I going to leave the elected one alone because they were attacking you? Even if it were Tayyip Erdoğan being attacked, if the nation elected him, I would stand by him, brother. What I am doing now is just that.

Even if it were Tayyip Erdoğan being attacked, we stand by the one the nation elected. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you telling us? What can you tell this nation? Does this nation give way to someone who sets out to take with a judge's gavel and a prosecutor's robe what he couldn't take at the ballot box in Bursa, which he couldn't win? The essence of the matter is here. Understand this first. Understand this first. That's why I say we are prepared to die. That's why I say it. This matter is more than a municipality; this matter is... My friends are lying upright inside.

Without bending or breaking. You are already gathering those who bend and break, saying 'You are worthy of me,' and taking them away. They are worthy of you. Today, 7 years ago, he performed his duty, was accused at that time, came, was investigated, it was said there was no permission for investigation. Permission for investigation was given. He was cleared. On top of that, he stood idle for 5 years. He won, he has been a metropolitan mayor for 2 years. There is not even a single allegation or slander regarding this period here. It is a matter of trying to take the municipality from our hands today by inventing something about a process, a foundation, or something that happened 7 years ago. Do you know what his crime is? His crime is this.

For months, for years, they have been having it written and drawn: 'He will join the AK Party.' He says, 'I will not join.' 'Either join the AK Party or be thrown into prison.' By God, I will risk prison, but I will not give up the trust I received from Bursa, he says. Friends, Mustafa Bozbey has received the vote of one in two people in a place like Bursa. They call the Green Bursa, the green of that Green Bursa, the green of its mountains, the green of Uludağ. They also claim the blessed green for themselves. You managed it. They saw how you managed it. They saw what you did. They saw what is gushing out. They saw that you covered everything from the congress of a man with 0.4 points of votes to whatever with the municipality's money for all your alliance partners. Bursa saw, heard, and knew what kind of waste there was, what kind of corruption there was.

"DOESN'T TURKEY SEE THIS?"

Bozbey also saw, he knows the man he knows. He became a candidate for the metropolitan city from Nilüfer, where he broke record after record. He lost. He waited 5 years. One in two people chose him. He beat you by 112 points. Now, the work they are trying to do today is to make the 'Heel-Clicking Efe'—whom AK Party deputies called a thief—a 'Heel-Clicking Efe' and put them by their side. To stop the service in places that vote for the CHP and make them serve places that vote for the AK Party. You are walking around with a female criminal organization leader who makes people pay the bill, while you slander ours. You can't put a bill in front of us. They pinned the badge on Aziz İhsan Aktaş, who made people pay the bills, and walked arm in arm. İsmail Güler, AK Party district head of Gaziantep Şehitkamil. Countless criminal complaints about Umut Yılmaz, who was elected from the CHP, he said everything that came to his mouth, that he stripped the municipality to the bone, that he was the leader of the corrupt. The other day they are touring tradesmen together. The owner of this word and the addressee. A lawsuit had been filed. He fled to the AK Party. When he went to the AK Party, they separated the lawsuit. Those who left are two people, the rest are here. The lawsuit continues here, for these, there is no prosecution. The reason is the transfer to the AK Party. Doesn't Gaziantep see this? Doesn't Turkey see this?

HE ADDRESSED BAHÇELİ! "I AM NOT SPEAKING BETWEEN THE LINES"

Mr. Bahçeli, in Bayrampaşa, I am not speaking between the lines. I am speaking clearly, Mr. Bahçeli. The mayor in Bayrampaşa gave it to me. I gave you the names. They said, 'I gave 1 million liras to the Bayrampaşa mayor, let him be released.'

He was saying, 'They brought me and my son to Silivri because I am afraid of lies.' His son was an MHP district executive. They lay inside. I announced it to you. I said, 'Take an interest in it.' You went and only took an interest in yourself and got him released. You left ours inside.

Mr. Bahçeli, the man says, 'If I had slandered, I wouldn't have gone in.' Let Mr. Devlet hear my voice. You went and only saved him from there. Ours is still there. Because there were those who slandered. They threw the one who said 'I won't slander' inside, even if he was an MHP member. Somehow you got him out. The one who was slandered is there, in the Bayrampaşa Municipality, the lower municipality passed to the AK Party by one vote. With fraudulent voting.

Gaziosmanpaşa, just because the majority is with you, you came. You put in a Mayor. There has been no indictment for months. He was showing TRT money from the safe. The seal came out. The money turned out to be stock footage. It was a lie. Brother, how is it, how is it that while fasting, while praying, when you put your head down when you prostrate, you do this to Gaziosmanpaşa and still want the acceptance of these prayers, how is this worship? We are asking you this.

The only sin of that child is that a beloved Gaziosmanpaşa figure beat your candidate. The municipal council is with you. There is no indictment yet. Indictment. Everything you said turned out to be a lie. Now you will go among the nation. You will talk, you will talk. Today, 30 municipalities in Turkey are managed by those not chosen by the nation. 28 of these 30, 12 municipalities are managed by trustees. 18 municipalities are held captive by the AK Party's judicial arms.

How will this work? Trust in the judiciary has fallen to 18%. The total population of those 30 municipalities is 28 million. You have crippled the last ballot box will of 28 million people.

In the outside world, you are perceived as a country where there is no democracy, no justice, and where risky opposition members are thrown inside. Europe sees this, the critical wings criticize it. The other one has no strength. Trump also sees it. Trump's man says this.

Remember, let's remind. Trump's man says this. 'Third-world countries are like this.' The question asked about the imprisonment of Ekrem İmamoğlu. 'Third-world countries are like this. You throw the opposition inside, you get rid of them, and you look at your way.' He says Erdoğan did the same.

He calls Turkey a third-world country. He sees the action taken as throwing the opposition inside and getting rid of them. But he gives premium to this. Because he says, 'I will change the regime in Syria. Whoever I put in, he will manage,' he said. I liked that. He never embarrassed me. 'I will hit and overthrow Iran, someone I deem appropriate will manage.' 'Whoever I say, he will manage Venezuela.'

In Turkey, too, 'I will change the regime. Whoever I say, he will manage the Republic regime.' Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. We have come here now.

The fact that the actor played the role of a democrat 30 years ago does not eliminate the reality of turning into an autocrat at the end of the scene. You will abolish democracy in Turkey, you will throw your rivals inside, you will stage a coup against the party that will beat you, the future ruling party. Then, as if everything is normal, you will give lectures on civilization according to the tie here. A civilized man is known not on the night he wins the election, but on the night he loses. Nothing comes from someone who gives a democracy lecture on the night he wins. He will give it on the night he loses, like İsmet Paşa. What is being done today, I say it clearly from here: What we are experiencing is not a CHP issue. This is a coup struck against the nation's right to vote and be elected.

"THIS IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE REGIME"

The multi-party democratic system, the rule of law, and the most important gain of the Republic entrusted by Atatürk, the ballot box, is in danger. It has been seized in the local election. It will be placed if there is a suitable atmosphere for the general election. If not, perhaps it will be abandoned even then. In Turkey, with Trump's support, the Republic regime is being tried to be abolished and replaced by a regime managed by whoever Trump wants. The issue is as clear as Venezuela, as transparent as Syria, but from Trump's perspective, it is a place where the shoe is expensive, like Iran. The target today is the CHP. Because this is where the objection to the establishment is embodied. That is why, in a completely unexpected way, the squares are filling up, overflowing, the nation is determined not to be discouraged by the hail and snow, not to faint, and not to leave the square before it is time. The closure case against the CHP is a case opened against everyone we see as a threat.

This is the language of the regime. If you become a presidential candidate, your place is to end up in Silivri. Candidates who will lose, not win, are being sought. He has no objection to a presidential candidate who will lose. In fact, he has a longing for it. If he sees that he will win, he throws him inside. The issue consists of this. It does not consist of anything else. Today, a deputy whom the people of Hatay chose and sent to the Parliament cannot perform his duty because he is in Silivri. Hatay, to Hatay. I remind you. Hatay is within the Misak-ı Milli borders. However, it is not Turkish territory as a result of the War of Independence. It is a special status and state later. How did Hatay join this country? With the ballot box, with the ballot box. They put a ballot box, they cast votes. The President cast a vote in the voting that took the President who added Hatay to Turkey from the President. May God have mercy on his soul. The deputy determined at the ballot box by the province that joined Turkey with the ballot box is in prison.

This is the point the regime has brought us to. Today, I say to those who say that the government is knitting a sock for the head of the CHP. It is putting a sack over the head of the nation. Just as America put a sack over the head of the Turkish soldier in Northern Iraq and gave a message to all of us, today, the sock knitted for the head of the Republican People's Party, which says 'We will continue the Republic government, we will continue the Republic regime, we defend that the elected one remains in power,' is the sack put over the head of the nation. The instruction is again from America. All of these can be done because America gives the go-ahead. Just as they appeared behind every coup, they are behind this coup too.

"LET WHOEVER COMES, COME, LET WHOEVER CAN TAKE, TAKE, LET WHOEVER REMOVES MY IMMUNITY, REMOVE IT"

Just like on July 15. Just like their children did on September 12, their children are now in a coup attempt against the next Republic government. I stand here with this concrete diagnosis and this claim.

Let whoever comes, come. Let whoever can take, take. Let whoever removes my immunity, remove it. He wrote today. Actually, it was a requirement of gentlemanliness not to touch the opposition. They had it written. Özgür Özel is continuing his insults. I said, 'One hand is gone, don't do this.'

Don't do this, Özgür. I was going to list the insults Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made to Mr. Bahçeli and the answers he received, and also the words they called me an insult. I didn't say those words to anyone. I didn't say those words to anyone at all.

I didn't answer the words said. What I said is this. The last lawsuit he filed is again what he calls an insult. As an elected prime minister and president, you could have gone down in history like this. Whether you became a candidate and lost or won, it was an honorable result. But you chose to go down in history as the head of the junta. This is the insult. What did you do? Look at the ballot box to which you owe everything you have achieved. Today, your objection is to the result of that ballot box. Didn't they know?

So, it means if this path is legitimate. It means if this path is legitimate. When you were the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, while you were being tried, was it very difficult for the judges of that period, for the governments of that period, to issue an arrest warrant? You were finished then, man.

You didn't exist. The AK Party government had never existed then. Is that so? It is not. If they had done that, this nation would have found a way and brought whoever it wanted to the head. That's why my belief in this nation these days. Do you understand? But you, I wish they had arrested me in those days. You say, 'If they had arrested me then, they would have gotten rid of me.' Because you see the victimization created by 3 months of unjust imprisonment. But here, you are doing the same thing despite the nation's decision.

"YOU ARE A MAN WHO ATTACKED THE DISTRICT ELECTION DIRECTOR"

You were not someone who had been elected four times in a row then. You entered the parliamentary election and lost.

You couldn't be the Mayor of Beyoğlu. In the election you lost, you attacked the district election director. You are such a man. Then, the victimization of February 28, both to the teacher and his fellow travelers, saying 'We took off that shirt,' winking at the military, getting permission from America... promising... with an urgent early election, all parties were left below the threshold, and you came here from political engineering.

Now you are someone who does this to this nation. That's why, that's why America puts a sack over the head of the nation, makes it put it over the head of the soldier, but this nation, this nation will see the account of this sooner or later. That's why, to the ministers who say there is a fire in the house of the Republican People's Party, let me say this: We are neighbors, you know.

If our house burns, the apartment burns. If our house burns, the apartment burns.

If this Ulucınar burns, the forest burns. That's why everyone should be careful about who is playing with fire, who is lighting a lighter with thinner in their hand. We are the party that has emerged from fires and has reborn this country from its ashes.

That's why everyone should decide correctly where they stand, what they do to whom, who they pass the ball to, and who they threaten.

If you are looking for someone who will be discouraged by those threats, you will not find them at the head of this party or by its side. What will we do after this? The struggle continues.