The Good Party (IP) of Türkiye’s opposition is struggling to stay afloat as back-to-back resignations, conspiracies and scandals rock the party nearly six months after the May elections.
Corruption allegations are running rampant in the party now on the brink of losing countless district offices as members are divided over Chair Meral Akşener’s administration’s decision to compete without an alliance in the upcoming local elections, Turkish media reported.
More pressingly, the IP’s ex-deputy chair of financial affairs, Ümit Dikbayır, has been the target of a scandalous allegation, exposing deep-rooted problems within the party.
Dikbayır, a lawmaker from the northern Sakarya province, on Tuesday was accused of “illegally auditing” the accounts of Akşener, her husband and her private secretary, alleging that TL 132 million ($458,106) from the party’s coffers was lost and that Akşener and other party members cooperated with some municipalities in exchange for financial gain.
Dikbayır, who was on Akşener’s right-hand team before the elections, resolutely denied the allegations.
He was expected to resign from the IP this weekend without waiting for a disciplinary process, but late Tuesday, he declared he had changed his mind and would instead “put them to shame” for “slandering” his name.
He said he would file a criminal complaint with the prosecutor’s office and go to the parliamentary disciplinary board for an investigation to counter the claims.
When she convened her general administrative board for a meeting to discuss the allegations on Sunday, Akşener confirmed the illegal search of her accounts and said she would “leave politics” if the allegations were proven to be true.
“Neither I nor my family, relatives or childhood friends have any connection or business with any municipality in this country, be it of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) or the Republican People's Party (CHP),” Akşener was quoted as saying.
The IP sought to contain the fallout in a statement that said there was “no loss” in its safe and that accounts were “processed properly.”
Sedat Aksakallı, deputy chair of IP’s election and financial affairs, announced that there is TL 27.3 million ($950,465) cash in the party's safe, contrary to Dikbayır’s claims the coffers were “emptied” after his tenure ended with the May elections before the party’s big congress in June when Akşener was reelected.
Dikbayır was referred to the party’s disciplinary board by Akşener personally with a request for his definitive expulsion, spokesperson Kürşad Zorlu told reporters on Monday.
Akşener, who didn’t offer any details on her referral, merely addressed “rumors” around the situation at her party’s parliamentary meeting on Wednesday, while Dikbayır said he would “expose everything” on live television on Thursday.
But a pro-opposition newspaper alleged Dikbayır’s disciplinary referral was due to not his initiative to audit Akşener’s accounts but the claim that he “sexually assaulted a female IP member who was fired five years ago.”
The incident was corroborated by two separate testimonies, according to the newspaper.
Dikbayır was quoted as saying he had “never” heard of the claim so far, but Akşener last week lashed out at “those who are attempting to fill their pockets” and “two police commissioners who run houses of ill fame.”
Akşener was broadly said to be indicating Dikbayır and another deputy from Antalya with these remarks.
Moreover, allegations surfaced about the son and nephew of a former IP deputy who raped two women in February of this year, and some 10 IP staff members who knew about it were laid off.
The party has been grappling with successive resignations in the meantime, losing prominent names since the decision to endorse CHP’s former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the general election and after the defeat to the AK Party.
Ex-Istanbul representative Ali Eker was the latest in a long list of members citing “discomfort” with the latest developments at the IP.
Some district chairs and deputies in dozens of cities, including Ankara, Sakarya and Malatya, left last week in a mass walkout over “unkept promises” and Akşener’s insistence to run separate mayoral candidates from the CHP. The pair were partners under a six-party coalition until May's defeat tore them apart and left the IP with a disappointingly low number of parliamentary posts.
Opposition parties view a new alliance as the only way to cling to municipal seats as the AK Party’s general election victory may spell another defeat in the March 2024 local elections.
