CHP, İYİ Party leaders meet ahead of “Table of Six” meeting

ANKARA

Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu visited İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener on Sept. 29, ahead of a meeting of six opposition parties, dubbed the “Table of Six,” on Oct. 2.

The leaders are expected to focus on the agenda for a joint candidate and whether they will move further toward an electoral alliance at Sunday’s meeting. The alliance has not named yet who will run for the presidential elections in June 2023.

The discussions were sparked after an aide of Kılıçdaroğlu, deputy leader Bülent Kuşoğlu, claimed that the six-party alliance would collapse if the leaders don’t agree with Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy.

The role of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in a possible alliance is also a hot potato between the İYİ Party and the CHP. The İYİ Party expressed its objection when CHP lawmaker Gürsel Tekin, on Sept. 4, said that the alliance of opposition parties might give the HDP a ministry if they win the next elections.

On Sept. 5, Kılıçdaroğlu said he was ready to run in the next presidential elections if other opposition parties agree on his name.

“If my name is agreed on, I am ready,” he said in an interview with Fox TV when asked about his possible presidential candidacy in the next elections.

“If agreed, of course. Why should we not be ready? It is clear how the state should be managed. All six leaders have already reached a consensus on how the state should be governed. We will sit, talk, discuss like civilized people,” he stated.

Felicity party (FP) Chair Temel Karamollaoğlu, CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu, Good (İYİ) Party Chairwoman Meral Akşener, Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) Chairman Ali Babacan, Future Party Chairman Ahmet Davutoğlu and Democrat Party Chairman Gültekin Uysal held their sixth in-person meeting on Aug. 21 as they agreed to reinstate the parliamentary system in Türkiye.