Former MHP names dominate Good Party’s cadre

Umut ERDEM - ANKARA

The executive board of Meral Akşener’s newly launched Good Party (İyi Parti) has been announced, predominantly including names that were once affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Akşener’s old party.

The Good Party announced on Oct. 26 its 12-member executive board, which includes seven politicians who were either lawmakers or party officials of the MHP.

Müsavat Dervişoğlu, Durmuş Yılmaz, Hayrettin Nuhoğlu, Koray Aydın, Mustafa Erdem, Şenol Bal and Ümit Özdağ had served for the MHP as lawmakers or at local administrations.

Besides the seven names, Aytun Çıray, a former Health Ministry undersecretary, had resigned from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to become an executive member of the Good Party.

The executive board also includes Ayfer Yılmaz, a former state minister and a lawmaker of the True Path Party (DYP) serving two parliamentary terms between 1996 and 2002 with Akşener, who was then an interior minister.

Other members of the board include former TAV Airports Holding Secretary-General Ahmet Ersagun Yücel, former Google Inc. Advertising Research head Vedat Taylan Yıldız and lawyer Şule Ünlü Doğan.

Visit to Atatürk’s mausoleum and mosque

Akşener paid a visit to Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, and the Hacı Bayram Veli mosque and shrine along with the party’s central executive board and central discipline board members.

Signing the Anıtkabir guestbook, Akşener wrote: “We will work hard and be successful by taking example of your sacrifice.”

"We took this road to realize a good Turkey. Time shows that we, as a country, paid heavy prices every time [the country] got out of the line that you have drawn for us,” Akşener wrote.