The Good Party (IP) of Türkiye’s six-party opposition bloc Nation Alliance suffered a fresh blow as one of its founding members quit the party on Monday, joining others walking away due to internal strife in the wake of the opposition’s defeat in the May elections.
“I am resigning from the Good Party, of which I am a founder. It has been a week, and I answered your questions about what’s next for me. The reason why is not personal but systemic,” Taylan Yıldız wrote on Twitter.
“I would like it known that I have never had a problem with individuals. I have another problem, and that is the issue of Ankara failing to listen to the youth,” he argued. “Let’s continue fighting to resolve this issue and for a new future. Let’s not give up hope; we’re only just beginning!”
Yıldız became the third member to leave the IP since the opposition’s joint candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was defeated by incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the bloc lost a parliamentary majority in last month’s polls. The resignations came before a party assembly next week that will raise a new chair or reelect incumbent Meral Akşener.
Before the May 14 elections, Yavuz Ağıralioğlu, a prominent lawmaker, also walked away from the party, citing its support for Nation Alliance endorsed by 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 criticized for tolerating the HDP’s support for the opposition bloc’s candidate.
Since then, several others, including Akşener’s chief adviser, who quit last week, 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 secular Republican People’s Party (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.
Akşener’s dissidents, who repeatedly called her to step down, are expected to form a new political movement.
The CHP itself faces criticism from its supporters who are demanding accountability over the failure and urging the Kılıçdaroğlu’s resignation.
Against mounting pressure from voters, the CHP has blamed “unfair conditions” for the defeat and assured it would “learn from its mistakes,” but Kılıçdaroğlu himself has remained unfazed by the backlash. He is also rumored to run again for CHP leadership at the party’s upcoming congress later this year, much to the dismay of prominent CHP members strongly calling for change.
If disagreements persist, the opposition risks another major loss in local elections in March next year when mayoral seats of top Turkish metropolitans, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, all currently governed by CHP members, will be up for grabs.
