Former main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker and dissident Muharrem Ince announced that he will soon establish a political party and that CHP lawmakers who recently announced their resignation will join the new party.
“I am not worried about establishing a party with a few lawmakers. We will form a political structure that will be able to obtain 50+1% of the vote,” Ince told the Demirören News Agency (DHA), as he added that he will submit his resignation soon.
Ince also said lawmakers Mehmet Ali Çelebi, Hüseyin Avni Aksoy and Özcan Özel, all dissident figures in the party, will join his newly established party. Harshly criticizing the CHP for trying to persuade the lawmakers to not resign from the party, Ince said the CHP started spreading lies after the trio went ahead with the resignation.
“They will not get anywhere with such defamation,” he said, as he accused CHP executives of lacking any sense of shame.
“You have destroyed democracy within your party so how are you supposed to bring democracy to this country?” Ince asked as he criticized CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for becoming authoritarian.
Regarding his party, Ince said the party bylaw has already been prepared and around 90% of the program has been completed.
As the main opposition party’s candidate in the 2018 Turkish presidential election, Ince received just over 30% of the votes, placing second behind the first-round winner, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with 53%.
Ince, who had launched the Homeland in A Thousand Days campaign back in August, is planning to resign on March 1.
Dissidents accuse Kılıçdaroğlu of hypocrisy in terms of criticizing Erdoğan for so-called “one-man rule,” while maintaining a firm grip on the party. They claim that Kılıçdaroğlu has become a pioneer of the one-man rule as he has failed to step down even though the party has lost numerous elections under his leadership. The dissidents also criticize the party for nominating individuals who seem to contradict party ideology and principles and for failing to hold offenders accountable for their mistakes.
