Republican People's Party (CHP) Istanbul deputy Sera Kadıgil Sütlü announced her resignation Friday and joined the left-wing Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP). With Kadıgil’s move, the number of TIP deputies in Parliament has increased to four.
The former-CHP lawmaker began her press conference by saying she was about to make the most difficult and exciting announcement of her life.
“As of today, I have resigned from my lovely home, from the part that has educated and brought me to this point,” she said. Kadıgil also expressed her gratitude to CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for encouraging her to engage in politics with the CHP.
Kadıgil said that the political axis in Turkey has been shifting to the right wing, saying that both CHP’s partners in the Nation Alliance and newly established parties are not exceptions in this sense. “As a result of this reality, the political center is moving to the right. However, there are millions of people living in this country who feel that they are not being represented as they deserve. Those who want to get rid of the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) 'corrupt' system. I am one of these people,” she claimed.
Supporting socialist policies, the TIP is currently represented by three deputies: former actor Barış Atay Mengüllüoğlu, former head of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and incumbent TIP chairman Erkan Baş and former journalist Ahmet Şık, a former member of the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who joined TIP in April 2021, a year after resigning from the HDP.
All three deputies ran from HDP lists in the 2018 parliamentary elections in June, with Atay and Baş resigning in November to join the TIP.
