New Welfare Party (YRP) Deputy Chair Doğan Bekin resigned from his post on Wednesday, at a news conference where he revealed a row with Suat Kılıç, another deputy chair of the opposition party.
Rumors were circulating about the possible resignation of Bekin and a switch to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for a while, but the politician revealed at the news conference in Ankara that he would remain in the party. Media outlets had earlier revealed that Bekin was not on good terms with Kılıç, a former minister who joined the YRP from the AK Party, for a while, and their differences of opinion further worsened in recent days. Bekin was quoted as saying that Kılıç opposed the terror-free Türkiye initiative and urged him to vote against a bill to facilitate the process involving the disarmament of the terrorist group PKK.
The YRP supported the AK Party in the 2023 presidential elections and is chaired by Fatih Erbakan, son of the late prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, political mentor of the AK Party Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Bekin said Erbakan asked him to leave the post of deputy chair and member of the Central Executive Committee of the party. He said he spent his early years within the National View (the political movement led by Necmettin Erbakan) and had major disagreements with Suat Kılıç over the latter’s books where he does not have "good things to say about Necmettin Erbakan." He said he asked Kılıç to apologize for what he wrote about Erbakan, but he refused.
When asked whether he would resign from the party, Bekin replied: "I will not act on my own regarding resignation. There are 117,500 voters who cast their ballots for me. There is a moral responsibility toward them. There are responsibilities placed on me by the local party organizations. We have colleagues, we have friends. I will under no circumstances take action without first consulting these brothers and sisters of ours who voted for us, worked for us, poured their hearts out day and night, and came to work in the campaign squares day and night doing local door-to-door outreach even while unable to take a bite of bread home. I will follow the process and act accordingly."
