Bahçeli invites İYİ Party to ally in upcoming local elections

ANKARA

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a part of the ruling People's Alliance, has extended an invitation to the İYİ (Good) Party for collaboration in the upcoming year's municipal elections.

The İYİ Party was founded by defectors from the MHP, expressing their dissent over Bahçeli's cooperation with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In a statement delivered by MHP deputy chair İsmail Özdemir during a CNN Türk news program, 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, led by Meral Akşener, emerged in October 2017 as a result of a schism within the MHP. Both the MHP and the İYİ Party share a nationalist stance, but the latter had formed an alliance with the social democratic main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and stayed a part until the May elections this year.