Three CHP MPs resign over disagreement with leader

ANKARA

Three lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have resigned from the party after a disagreement with party chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu over the direction and management of the party.

Hüseyin Avni Aksoy, an MP for the northern province of Karabük, Mehmet Ali Çelebi, an MP for the western province of İzmir, and Özcan Özer, an MP for the northwestern province of Yalova, resigned from the CHP on Jan. 29 and announced their move at a joint press conference in parliament.

“We are resigning from the CHP until the party returns to the line of Atatürk,” Aksoy told reporters.

The three lawmakers wrote a letter to Kılıçdaroğlu in the past weeks outlining their disturbance over the policies of the main opposition. They met Kılıçdaroğlu on Jan. 27 but the meeting failed to stop their resignation. With the resignation the lawmakers, the number of the main opposition’s seats in parliament dropped to 135.

Çelebi, in a statement, accused the CHP of partnering with what he calls the “enemy of the republic” and abandoning the party’s fellows by favoring Abdullah Gül as a potential presidential candidate. Gül, a former president from the ranks of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), had split his ways with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and since has been seen as his potential rival in future presidential polls.

There are rumors that these three lawmakers may join Muharrem İnce, another dissident within the CHP, in his plans to form his own political party in the coming weeks. İnce has said he is about to complete his works for his party.

Earlier in the day, the Interior Ministry filed a lawsuit against Kılıçdaroğlu for describing provincial governors as “militants.”