Former Turkish PM Davutoğlu quits party politics, announces closure of his party - Turkish Minute
Former Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has announced that he is withdrawing from party politics and ending the political activities of his opposition Future (Gelecek) Party, saying Turkey’s political system had reached an impasse marked by polarization, fragmentation and declining ethical standards.
Former Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has announced that he is withdrawing from party politics and ending the political activities of his opposition Future (Gelecek) Party, saying Turkey’s political system had reached an impasse marked by polarization, fragmentation and declining ethical standards. Davutoğlu, who served as foreign minister and prime minister under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan before breaking with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), announced the decision in a lengthy written statement on Wednesday. “Following consultations with our party’s authorized bodies and our colleagues who brought the Future Party to this point, we have decided to withdraw from party politics and terminate the Future Party’s political activities in order to not become part of a contaminated political climate,” Davutoğlu said. “This is not a decision to surrender. It is a decision to establish a moral distance,” he added. “This is not an abandonment of politics but a call for everyone to rethink politics. ”Kamuoyuna Duyuru!pic. twitter. com/AuMrlOnSkz— Ahmet Davutoğlu (@Ahmet_Davutoglu)July 29, 2026Although several Turkish news outlets described the party as dissolved, Davutoğlu’s statement referred to ending its political activities. It was not immediately clear whether the formal legal procedures required to dissolve the party had been completed. Davutoğlu said efforts to build a viable conservative alternative to Erdoğan’s AKP had repeatedly failed because of disagreements among smaller opposition parties, defections by lawmakers and what he described as widespread political corruption. He said the Future Party had initially sought an alliance of three conservative parties in 2021, saying that Turkey’s political system made electoral alliances unavoidable. When that effort failed, the party joined an opposition bloc led by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) ahead of the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, with Davutoğlu saying the aim had been to prevent political “revenge” arising from polarization and to promote social reconciliation. Future Party candidates contested the 2023 parliamentary election on CHP lists, winning 10 seats. Several of those lawmakers later resigned from the party, leaving it with four deputies before Wednesday’s announcement. After the election, the Future Party and the Islamist opposition Felicity Party formed a joint parliamentary group. They later joined with the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) under the New Path Party umbrella in an effort to preserve a parliamentary group and create a broader conservative opposition platform. Davutoğlu said the Future Party had been prepared to sacrifice even its name to achieve a merger but that attempts to unite the parties or create an “organic alliance” had failed. “We made every sacrifice, including our party’s name, so that alternative conservative politics could be represented as a parliamentary group and emerge as a strong option for the future,” he said. Davutoğlu blamed the failure partly on the transfer of lawmakers between parties, saying such defections had damaged public confidence in smaller opposition movements. “The erosion of political ethics, which has spread regardless of party affiliation, and transfers of lawmakers have made our efforts to create a strong political alternative more difficult and have undermined the standing of our parties in the eyes of society,” he said. He argued that Turkey was caught between the concentration of power in the hands of the government and the fragmentation of opposition forces, which he said prevented the emergence of a credible alternative. “On the one hand, we face the monopolization of power, and on the other, fragmentation that renders alternative political forces ineffective,” Davutoğlu said. He also accused Turkey’s political establishment of being unable to reform itself. “The capacity of the existing political mechanisms to correct themselves has largely been exhausted,” he said, adding that corruption originating at the highest levels of politics had spread to political organizations, civil society and broader society. Davutoğlu said he would continue to contribute to public debate outside party politics but did not provide details about what role he planned to assume. Selçuk Özdağ, a member of parliament from the Future Party, said the party’s four remaining lawmakers would continue participating in the New Path parliamentary group as independents. Davutoğlu was one of the most influential figures in the AKP during its first decade in power. He served as Erdoğan’s chief foreign policy adviser before becoming foreign minister in 2009. He became prime minister and AKP chairman in 2014 after Erdoğan was elected president but resigned from both positions in May 2016 following growing disagreements with Erdoğan over the management of the party and government. Davutoğlu left the AKP in 2019 before the party could expel him and founded the Future Party in December of that year as a conservative alternative to Erdoğan’s increasingly centralized rule. The party failed to establish a significant independent electoral base and relied on cooperation with larger opposition parties to secure parliamentary representation.