İYİ Party leader says doesn’t expect polls until 2023

ANKARA

İYİ (Good) Party chair Meral Akşener has said she doesn’t expect any elections to take place before June 2023 due to economic woes, reiterating that opposition leaders have not voiced any such expectation despite continuous claims indicating they have by the government and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

“I expect no elections before 2023 due to the economy. But I don’t understand why we are being accused of having demanded early polls,” Akşener said in an online interview over the weekend.

She stressed that no opposition leader has ever called for early elections but were being slammed by the government and MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli as though they called for snap polls.

“Statements by Bahçeli are like a joke. They are the ones who are raising the issue and they are the same ones who are criticizing the opposition,” she stressed.

Akşener’s statements follow criticisms from the MHP leader, criticized by opposition parties for trying to drag Turkey into chaos by suggesting early polls. Turkey’s next scheduled elections will be held in June 2023.

Bahçeli, a staunch ally of President and chair of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reiterated his criticisms against the opposition at a weekend meeting of his party.

“It’s immoral to make plans to come to the government as our country is passing through difficult days,” he said.

There are those who are trying to turn into an “ungovernable state,” Bahçeli said, urging his MHP fellows to pay the “utmost attention” to protect the People’s Alliance with the AKP. He repeated that Turkey will hold elections on time, in June 2023.