Meral Akşener says it’s tough game finding space for new party’s launch

ANKARA

Former Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lawmaker Meral Akşener, now set to be the leader of a long-awaited new political party to be officially founded in October, said on Sept. 30 in Ankara that they are determined to form the party even in a tent after a hotel backtracked on hosting the event.

“We are forming our party on the 25th [of October]. If we can’t find a place to do that, we will hold the event in this building’s garden and still proceed. We will set up a tent to unite our people with our party on the 25th,” Akşener said as she investigated the new party headquarters in Ankara’s Çankaya Mustafa Kemal district.

Finding a place to announce the name of the new party has not been easy for Akşener and her followers.

“Our friends went to pay for and sign the deal with the hotel. Owners told us they had changed their minds about renting the space to us. Now, this is very interesting,” the former MHP lawmaker said.

Linking this incident to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s earlier years as a politician, Akşener said, “Even he did not face a difficulty at this level coming from the people of power at the time.”

“History repeats itself,” Akşener added.

The MHP dissident previously vowed “the new party will be the party of the whole country.”

“Our party will be born as the party of Turkey. Our nation has acknowledged it as Turkey’s party even before it has been born,” Akşener said at a meeting in Istanbul’s Avcılar district on Sept. 26.

The name, emblem and internal party regulations will be declared on Oct. 25, Akşener stated.

Akşener, who has a background in nationalist politics, also said she would visit Turkey’s southeastern and eastern provinces for 15 days and hold meetings with locals there. She has rented a house in the eastern province of Bitlis and will head there after Oct. 25.

“We will become the third party competing in the region with the ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] and the Peoples’ Democratic Party [HDP],” she said.