Many Gülen Movement-linked figures, including former police chiefs and former deputies, announced their independent deputy candidacies for the upcoming June 7 elections for which political parties submitted their candidate lists on Tuesday.Among them are figures who were previously under the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) political umbrella. Since Gülen Movement figures did not manage to form a political party to take part in the upcoming election, Hakan Şükür, a former AK Party deputy who resigned after the split between the movement and the party since he is closely associated with the movement, recently announced that he is running as an independent candidate. İdris Bal, also a former AK Party deputy from the western central province of Kütahya, announced his independent candidacy after resigning from the Democratic Development Party (DGP), which he established in November 2014, citing reasons such as "serious alienation and media censorship." Bal founded the DGP in November 2014 after having resigned from the ruling AK Party in November 2013.

Yurt Atayün, a former police chief allegedly affiliated with the Gülen Movement, who was arrested in an operation against members of the Gülen Movement in the police, also announced his deputy candidacy as an independent candidate. Reportedly, Atayün's candidacy application to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was not accepted by the party administration.

Ali Fuat Yılmazer, who was also arrested in an operation into the movement's alleged illegal wiretapping activities and gave testimony as a suspect in the murder case of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, announced his independent deputy candidacy.

Figures close to the Gülen Movement in the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) did not find places in the party's candidate list. According to the finalized CHP candidate list, Umut Oran, an Istanbul deputy, has been excluded from the list due to his alleged ties with the movement. Oran commented on his exclusion from the list and said he was very surprised. His name had been mentioned along with the controversial Twitter account, @fuatavni, which is known to be a fabricated account affiliated with and used by the Gülen Movement to break exclusive information. When the account came under the microscope after allegations of an assassination plot against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's daughter, Sümeyye Erdoğan, it unveiled alleged texts between Oran and the @fuatavni Twitter account.

CHP Istanbul deputy Faik Tünay, who is claimed to have close ties with the Gülen Movement, was also excluded from the CHP's candidate list. In his first statement after the candidate list was released, Tünay said that he will soon explain to the public why he is not on the list. There has been a debate among members of the CHP due to allegations that the party and the Gülen Movement had an alliance. Former CHP İzmir Deputy Birgül Ayman Güler, who later resigned from the party, stated that "the movement is like a barnacle. Barnacles cannot maintain their lives without clinging to whales. After a while, they make the whales heavy and the only way for the whales to get rid of them is by rubbing themselves on the land in shallow parts of a sea. The Gülen Movement clung to the AK Party, but the AK Party saved itself. Now they are trying to cling to the CHP. Unfortunately, our friends [in the CHP] say ‘why not?'"

Evaluating the Gülen Movement's possible effects in the upcoming election, Mustafa Şen, the head of the polling company GENAR, said in an interview with Daily Sabah: "[The Gülen Movement] has no ability to directly affect politics or voters, neither the state nor the nation lets them shape an election or political atmosphere."

The Gülen Movement is a transnational movement led by the U.S.-based imam Fethullah Gülen. It is accused of wiretapping thousands of people including government officials and encrypted phones. It has over 140 private schools around the world including in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa. It has been accused of infiltrating state institutions in Turkey and trying to overthrow the government. Government officials have continuously expressed their determination to continue to lawfully fight the Gülen Movement, whose followers are accused of infiltrating state institutions to gain control of state mechanisms and illegal wiretapping, forgery of official documents and spying.