İYİ Party’s Istanbul deputy parts ways with party

ANKARA

Ayşe Sibel Yanıkömeroğlu, Istanbul deputy of the İYİ (Good) Party, has announced her resignation after the party’s central decision-making body rejected to form a partnership with the Republican People’s Party (CHP) for the local polls. Yanıkömeroğlu has been the third İYİ Party deputy that resigned from the party.

“I’ve been feeling the sorrow of [the İYİ Party’s] distancing from our founding principles and objectives,” she said in a message through social media late on Dec. 6. Yanıkömeroğlu was among the founders of the İYİ Party under the leadership of chairwoman Meral Akşener in 2017.

The central executive board (GİK) of the İYİ Party has decided to run in the local polls individually and rejected the calls from the CHP. The two parties did cooperate in the 2019 municipal polls and won Istanbul, Ankara and other big cities. Akşener, in an address to her party on Dec. 6, described the political alliance as a masquerade ball in which the İYİ Party will not take place.

Before Yanıkömeroğlu, senior members of the İYİ Party, including former MP Durmuş Yılmaz, member of the GİK Bahadır Erdem have also resigned.

Eskişehir Deputy Nebi Hatipoğlu also resigned to join the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Sakarya Deputy Ümit Dikbayır resigned after a disciplinary action has been launched against him by the party leadership.

The İYİ Party currently has 41 deputies in the 600-seat Turkish parliament.