The Good Party’s (IP) seats in the Turkish Parliament fell to 36 after another lawmaker resigned on Friday amid a changing political landscape following the March 31 local elections.
“I observe with sadness that the conditions for serving our nation and country have disappeared at the Good Party,” Aykut Kaya, IP’s representative of southern Antalya province, said on X as he announced his resignation.
“Therefore, I have decided to resign from IP membership. It wasn’t an easy step for me personally but I thought it necessary to be able to serve our country and Antalya better,” Kaya said.
The IP, the fifth-largest in Parliament, has been shaken by a string of resignations since earlier this year when former Chairperson Meral Akşener insisted on fielding the party’s own candidates in municipal elections instead of allying with stronger parties.
She stepped down for an intraparty election earlier this month following the party’s underwhelming performance at the March 31 municipal elections, leaving her post to 64-year-old businessperson Müsavat Dervişoğlu, a former member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) like herself.
More resignations followed Dervişoğlu’s victory, including the mayor of a town in the northern province of Trabzon while the party’s acting parliamentary group chair Erhan Usta, a supporter of Dervişoğlu’s rival Koray Aydın, stepped down from his post.
Akşener is the second party chair to lose her seat after the 2023 presidential elections won by incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In November, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, lost his seat to Özgür Özel in an intra-party election. Supporters of both parties were critical of their leaders for election losses against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
The IP thrived on the votes of former supporters of the MHP who were disillusioned with the latter’s alliance with the AK Party. Another group split from the MHP founded the far-right Victory Party (ZP), but it fared worse than the IP in municipal elections. The IP won only one provincial mayor seat in the March 31 elections.
