The Turkish opposition’s Good Party (IP) is losing a founding member as Ankara lawmaker Koray Aydın, “bothered” by the party’s former chairperson Meral Akşener’s surprise meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this month, prepares to call it quits.
The IP administration’s “indifference and lack of stand” against the meeting pushed Aydın to resign, Turkish media reported Tuesday.
The meeting was the first time Akşener and Erdoğan came together formally, weeks after senior officials from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) visited Akşener’s successor, Müsavat Dervişoğlu.
Akşener has been out of the spotlight since she stepped down from her post and Dervişoğlu won the race for the opposition party's top chair following IP’s disappointing performance in the March 31 municipal elections.
For Aydın, who is expected to announce his decision via social media on Thursday, Akşener’s move “brought shame” to IP, reports said. They added that he will be taking a group of his colleagues with him as he quits, although these are not expected to be lawmakers.
Certain party sources alleged that Aydın and his associates would work independently for a while before joining the Democratic Party (DP), but DP Chair Gültekin Uysal dismissed the rumors.
“Türkiye needs a center-right,” he told an opposition newspaper on Tuesday. “It’s natural for political parties to open their doors to formations that embrace their own opinions. We haven’t received any contact or requests. If it comes, it will be evaluated.”
Turkish media said the Ankara representative would not be founding a party of his own either, that he would be serving “solo.”
Aydın had also been rumored to meet with Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, both belonging to the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), during this period, but sources close to the lawmaker denied that any meeting took place.
The IP, the fifth-largest in Parliament, has been shaken by a string of resignations since earlier this year when Akşener insisted on fielding the party’s own candidates in municipal elections instead of allying with stronger parties.
More resignations followed even after she was replaced by Dervişoğlu, a former member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) like herself.
With Aydın’s exit, another former MHP member, IP’s seats at the 600-seat Parliament falls to 34.
The party had won only one provincial seat in the local polls.
