Mayor of Ankara left the opposition Republican People's Party

Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş resigned from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Wednesday, saying he would remain in office as an independent, Turkish Minute reports.

His decision came two weeks after a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stirred speculation about his political future.

Yavaş has won two elections for mayor of Turkey’s capital and is seen as a possible presidential challenger to Erdoğan. His departure leaves him outside both sides of a divided opposition at a time when investigations have reached his own municipality and other opposition-run cities.

In a statement on X, Yavaş said “certain statements made today” had prompted him to leave the CHP. He did not identify the speakers or say what they had said.

He also made clear that he was not joining another party. Ankara’s voters had elected him as a CHP candidate, he said, and he would not take their mandate to a party they had not chosen.

Yavaş had remained in the CHP after a court overturned Özgür Özel’s election as chairman at the party’s 2023 congress and reinstated his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Özel and 90 lawmakers left to form the New Party. Yavaş sought to keep members of both parties working together on Ankara’s city council.

He said Wednesday that he had warned for months that the leadership fight could divide the opposition and weaken its chances of defeating Erdoğan.

The dispute has unfolded as the CHP faces a wave of investigations into its mayors. İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a leading Erdoğan rival, has been jailed pending trial since March 2025 on corruption charges he denies.