The Good Party (IP) of Türkiye’s six-party opposition bloc Nation Alliance has started a disciplinary procedure to expel six members that launched an intra-party dissident movement that seemed a long time in the making since the May elections.
IP Chairperson Meral Akşener personally inked the order referring six members, including founding members Ethem Baykal and Ismet Koçak, to the central disciplinary board per "conditions that require disciplinary punishment," party officials said Wednesday.
The group, who repeatedly called on Akşener to step down, attempted to move against their leader, claiming the IP was "moving away from its foundational willpower."
The IP has been dithering since a crushing defeat in presidential and legislative elections two months ago in which the Nation Alliance’s joint candidate, Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was defeated by incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the bloc lost parliamentary majority.
Several members, including another founding member, have since walked away from the party citing an "internal strife" in Akşener’s party over what was shaping up to be the opposition’s best chance at taking power.
Akşener herself secured her position in an intra-party election last month. However, the IP continues losing blood as deputies criticize the party for unsuccessful strategies and the Nation Alliance for having the endorsement of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a party linked to the PKK terrorist group. The IP portrays itself as a nationalist party but has long been censured for tolerating the HDP’s support for the opposition bloc’s candidate.
Since then, several others, including Akşener’s chief adviser, who quit in June, have maintained criticism of the IP administration, as well as the bloc’s campaign strategies, for setting the opposition up for failure in one of the most critical elections in modern Türkiye’s history.
Alongside the CHP, the IP is the second-largest in the Nation Alliance, which joined forces against Erdoğan first in the run-up to the 2018 elections.
While the alliance won 212 parliamentary seats on May 14 for all five parties that ran under the CHP’s banner, which managed to clinch 169 seats on its own, the IP received a disappointing 9.6% support amounting to 43 lawmakers.
Low support has produced another strain on the party and its ally CHP. The two partners had locked horns on numerous occasions throughout their alliance, most notably in March earlier this year, when Akşener, who initially had been staunchly opposed to Kılıçdaroğlu’s nomination, quit the bloc in a public outburst only to come back two days later. It was a move that damaged her confidence with the Turkish public and spurred more discord in her party.
The CHP itself faces criticism from its supporters who are demanding accountability over the failure and urging Kılıçdaroğlu’s resignation.
If disagreements persist, the opposition looks increasingly likely to risk another major loss in local elections in March next year when the mayoral seats of top Turkish metropolitans, Istanbul and Ankara, both currently governed by CHP members, will be up for grabs.
In further sign the six-party alliance is on the brink of collapse, the IP on Wednesday announced plans to run its own candidates in upcoming local polls, complicating the odds of partner CHP retaining the key municipalities.
"Our essential goal is to make Good Party number one. We aim to be present in this competition by producing our own cadres as per our foundational principles," spokesperson Kürşad Zorlu told reporters in Ankara.
"The election alliance is another dispute, a whole new dimension," Zorlu argued.
It was the forging of the Nation Alliance with the IP that put CHP candidates in Istanbul and Ankara’s mayoral offices in the last local elections of 2019, which the IP frequently reminds the CHP of.
"When the time comes and if a reason forms, we will examine our rules and see if it could work," Zorlu said.
As for comments on the party’s move to compete alone, Zorlu said: "Why aren’t these questions we face whenever there’s an alliance or cooperation not directed to other members of the alliance?"
He also dismissed rumors that Akşener and Kılıçdaroğlu discussed the approaching elections when the CHP leader paid a visit to the IP offices recently to congratulate her reelection.