Three opposition leaders meet to discuss return to parliamentary system

ANKARA

The leaders of three opposition parties have held an announced meeting to discuss the future composition of the Nation Alliance, as well as ongoing preparations over the main pillars of the road map for the return of the parliamentary system once they come to power in the next elections.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Meral Akşener, the chair of the İYİ (Good) Party, and Ahmet Davutoğlu, the chairman of the Future Party met late Jan. 20 over dinner. The reunion follows Davutoğlu’s separate meetings with both Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener in the past week. The Future Party is not a member of the Nation Alliance but is a part of multiparty initiative to draft the principles of the strengthened parliamentary system.

The CHP and İYİ Party, along with the Democrat Party and the Felicity Party, make up the Nation Alliance. Davutoğlu’s Future Party and Ali Babacan’s Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) are partnering with the alliance, but they are not yet formal members of it.

The meeting of the three leaders follow Davutoğlu’s proposal to build a new alliance instead of the Nation Alliance in which his party and DEVA could also be represented on equal terms. He also reportedly expressed his complaints from the fact that his party was not invited to a television program in which the alliance’s preparations for the return to the parliamentary system were introduced. Although there was no statement after the meeting, the Turkish media reported that Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener have addressed Davutoğlu’s complaints.

Kılıçdaroğlu, Akşener and Davutoğlu came together after the representatives of these six parties announced that they concluded a draft on the basics of the parliamentary system earlier this week.