İYİ Party tacitly rejects Bahçeli's call for alliance

ANKARA

İYİ (Good) Party spokesperson Kürşad Zorlu has implicitly rejected a call for cooperation from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli in the forthcoming year's local elections.

"We invite the pure-hearted people of our beautiful country, nationalists, patriots and lovers of Türkiye to meet at the İYİ Party for the benefit of the country and nation," Zorlu stated in a written statement released on Aug. 11.

Zorlu pointed to an event in the western province of Afyonkarahisar where party leader Meral Akşener is scheduled to address citizens. "I would like to express that the important statements to be made here will be an important start in Turkish politics," the spokesperson remarked earlier.

In a statement delivered by MHP deputy chair İsmail Özdemir during a CNN Türk news program on Aug. 10, Bahçeli urged the İYİ Party to join forces in the forthcoming elections.

"We called you, and you didn't return home, let's be neighbors in local power for the good of the country," the MHP leader's words were quoted by Özdemir.

Bahçeli referred to his previous call to former MHP members who migrated to the İYİ Party. In August 2019, prior to the İYİ Party's fourth extraordinary congress, Bahçeli had extended an invitation to them to return to their roots.

The İYİ Party was established by former MHP defectors who voiced disagreement with Bahçeli's cooperation with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

While both the MHP and the İYİ Party share a nationalist stance, the latter had previously formed an alliance with the social democratic main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and stayed a part of that until the May elections this year.