Some three months after losing the presidential elections to incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the opposition bloc is disintegrating. Meral Akşener, chair of the Good Party (IP), the second biggest member of the bloc, held talks with Muharrem Ince, head of Homeland Party (MP), on Wednesday evening, fuelling speculation of a new alliance for the March 2024 municipal elections.
The IP has already announced that it would nominate its own candidates in the upcoming polls instead of joining forces with the more powerful Republican People’s Party (CHP) it allied with in the May elections.
Akşener and Ince did not comment on their one-hour meeting at the IP headquarters in the capital Ankara, but media outlets reported they discussed ways of cooperation in the local elections.
The meeting follows blunt remarks by Akşener that they “did not establish (the IP) to elect the candidates of the CHP.”
Shortly before her meeting with Ince, Akşener also posted on social media a message implying that they were “resetting” themselves.
Akşener, a former interior minister who split from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) with other lawmakers to found the IP, has been a significant member of the opposition bloc. But the nomination of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu by the bloc as a presidential candidate against Erdoğan angered the party, which favored either mayor of Istanbul or Ankara as a candidate.
The IP reluctantly endorsed Kılıçdaroğlu, which lost to Erdoğan despite a runoff, the first in over two decades of Turkish politics dominated by Erdoğan and his party.
Ince, a former member of the CHP who was nominated against Erdoğan in earlier elections, was a contender for the Presidency for the MP before suddenly dropping out of the race after what he called a plot against him, including doctored images and videos showing an extramarital affair. Ince was accused by CHP supporters of “dividing” the vote for the opposition bloc and unwittingly or knowingly working in favor of Erdoğan in the elections. Ince has denounced the allegations and following Kılıçdaroğlu’s defeat, signaled that he may return to his former party in the future.
