İYİ Party ‘not alarmed’ about MHP’s calls for early elections

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener has said there is nothing to be alarmed about after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli called for early elections on Aug. 26 this year. 

“We have all heard about Mr. Bahçeli’s call to have elections on Aug. 26. There is nothing to be alarmed about from our point of view. We have come to this stage after overcoming difficulties in the face of all the heavy smearing launched against us,” Akşener said on April 17 at her party’s Istanbul provincial branch.

“Early election or an election on time; this or that; there is nothing to be worried about or to have problems over in our opinion,” she added.

Meanwhile, İYİ Party deputy chair Ümit Özdağ said snap elections would be “good” for Turkey.

Emphasizing that the their party was “ready” for an early election, Özdağ said Akşener had many times in the past stressed that she was anticipating the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on July 15, earlier than the scheduled date of Nov. 3, 2019.

Özdağ said the party however revised their expectations for the elections to take place in November of this year, due to the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s initial plan to hold their annual congress in September. “But the fear of a financial collapse has pushed the [Presidential] Palace and the AKP to move the election to an earlier date. And they made Bahçeli make this statement,” he said.

“The government has made this decision to postpone the results of the economic downfall to after the elections. But it will be good for Turkey. It will be the beginning of a salvation. Following the elections, with the establishment of a democratic state of law in Turkey once again, the money that is currently not coming to Turkey and the qualified manpower that fled Turkey will start coming back,” Özdağ added.