Yüksel Arslan joined a growing chorus of dissent against Meral Akşener as the Ankara deputy for the Good Party (IP) announced his resignation on Thursday. Like most others, Arslan, an Ankara native, severed ties with the party when Akşener and her immediate circle opposed an alliance with the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Akşener insists that the opposition party should field its own candidates for the March 2024 municipal polls. Her dissidents, however, believe that the political underdog’s only chance of survival in the political scene is supporting the candidates of the main opposition CHP, Türkiye’s oldest and second-biggest party.
With Arslan’s resignation, the IP now has only 38 seats in the Turkish Parliament, down from the 44 it secured in last May’s parliamentary elections.
Arslan worked under Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş before he was elected to Parliament. His statement on social media as he announced his resignation focused on Akşener’s accusation of Yavaş of “cowardice” as the CHP mayor, a former member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) like Akşener, rejected the IP chair’s offer to nominate him for president in May elections. Arslan said Yavaş was a “brave man.” Arslan also defended his personal efforts to negotiate an alliance with the CHP in the upcoming elections and denied he aimed to harm his party.
He noted that he opposed the IP’s preference to field its own candidate for Ankara and cited the accomplishments of Yavaş – who was supported by the IP when he was nominated in the 2019 elections.
May’s defeat tore the opposition alliance apart seemingly for good. The IP has also blasted the CHP for the opposition’s poor showing in parliamentary polls. Yet, an alliance appears to be the only tangible way for the IP to get candidates elected.
The CHP itself is No. 2 in Türkiye in terms of support but needs votes from other opposition parties to win in certain cities. The IP’s decision, as well as the plan of its second-biggest ally, the pro-PKK Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), to run its own candidates in March, is a major roadblock for the CHP to maintain its hold in Istanbul and Ankara. It won in the two key cities in 2019 over President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for the first time in over two decades.
