Former Labor powerbroker and minister Adem Somyurek has announced he will contest the upcoming state election for the socially conservative Democratic Labour Party.
The announcement is a reversal of Mr Somyurek's previous decision not to run, after he resigned from his upper house South-Eastern Metropolitan Region seat last month.
In a statement, Mr Somyurek said he had changed his mind about running after receiving "extraordinary feedback from the electorate pleading for me to stay on and continue to hold [Premier Daniel] Andrews to account".
He accused Premier Daniel Andrews of regarding Victoria as his "personal fiefdom" and posing an "existential threat to our democratic values and civil liberties".
"The Socialist Left-controlled ALP is no longer a real working-class party," Mr Somyurek said.
"It is merely a vehicle for a private school-educated inner-city elitist cabal to exploit the working class to enhance their own political careers."
Mr Somyurek will run as the party's lead candidate for the Northern Metropolitan Region.
Party seeks to repeal abortion and assisted dying laws
The move means Mr Somyurek will contest the election alongside former Liberal MP Bernie Finn, who is now the Victorian leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).
Mr Finn was expelled from the Liberal Party in May after a series of inflammatory social media posts over several months, including conspiracy theories linked to the Capitol riots and more recent comments advocating for the criminalisation of abortion.
In a statement, Mr Finn said the union of a former Labor and Liberal MP under the DLP banner came at a "unique time in Victorian history".
"As some of us DLP candidates in this election have like myself, left the Liberal Party because of their lack of moral compass and others, like Mr Somyurek, left the ALP for the same reasons … and are now united by the Democratic Labour Party for real freedom, from the reason the party was founded in 1955," he said.
The minor party has an extensive list of policies on its website which include repealing abortion and assisted dying laws in Victoria and ending climate change education in schools.
It also wants to change laws so the Aboriginal flag cannot be flown from government offices or on public property.
Bitter fallout after years as Labor MP
Mr Somyurek, who was first elected in 2002, served the last part of his current term as an independent after a bitter fallout with Mr Andrews.
Prior to that, Mr Somyurek had served in a number of ministerial roles in the Andrews government including local government and small business.
In 2015, the Premier forced him to resign from Cabinet after he was accused of bullying his female chief of staff — an accusation Mr Somyurek denied.
After the party's 2018 election victory, Mr Somyurek was returned to Cabinet.
He was removed again by Mr Andrews in 2020 after an investigative report alleged he was involved in branch stacking and used misogynistic language to disparage a colleague.
Mr Somyurek later told the state's anti-corruption watchdog he engaged factional operatives as his electorate office staff and said branch stacking was rife in the Labor Party during the 1990s.
