Five more members of the Good Party (IP) in Turkey’s central Kayseri province have tendered their resignation due to their dissatisfaction with the party’s treatment of a group of members.
The members, identified as IP Provincial Founding Organization Chair Ismail Tanrıöven, Deputy Chair Serap Altuntaş, former IP Deputy Chair Menekşe Çelebi and former executive board members Rekin Çalı and Zafer Dağ, submitted their resignation letters on Monday.
In their joint letter, the members said the IP had been formed as a nationalist party to embrace all citizens without discrimination, but the party administration has since forgotten the founding principles.
“The Turkish nationalists and Turkish nationalism have been excluded by the party,” the letter read, adding that the party has become the center of a specific clique’s anti-democratic practices.
The quintet continued by saying that the party has also turned a deaf ear to calls by some party officials to investigate infiltration by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
“On the contrary, the individuals who issued these warnings were unjustly accused,” the statement said.
Earlier this month, IP Istanbul Deputy Ümit Özdağ was dismissed from the party after claiming that the party’s Istanbul Chairperson Buğra Kavuncu has links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), a group that had direct involvement in the July 15, 2016 coup attempt and infiltration of Turkish state institutions.
The IP managed to enter Parliament through an alliance with the Republican People's Party (CHP) in the July 24, 2018, presidential and parliamentary elections, when the party received just 9% of the votes. The alliance continued into the March 31 local elections, too. However, during the local elections, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was also indirectly involved in the alliance as a matter of shared interest. As the CHP's cooperation with the HDP became more apparent since March 31, the IP, known for its nationalist tendencies, has seen its concerns peak. Many of the IP's base has revealed discomfort with the alliance and shifted their positions, resigning from the party and going back to roles as MHP chairs.
