Nephew of iconic former PM and Welfare Party leader Erbakan joins CHP

ISTANBUL

In this file photo, Sabri Erbakan (R) travels with Mustafa Sarıgül’s Turkish Movement for Change (TDH). Hürriyet photo

Sabri Erbakan, the nephew of the iconic former Prime Minister and leader of the Welfare Party (RP), Necmettin Erbakan, has joined the Republican People’s Party (CHP), spokesperson Haluk Koç announced on Nov. 14.
 
Erbakan was the founder of the “Milli Görüş” (National Vision) in 1969, giving birth to the most important conservative parties with an ideology entrenched in political Islam.
 
The success of the Welfare Party during the 1994 local and 1995 general elections was overshadowed by the Feb. 28, 1997 military memorandum, also known as the post-modern coup, which leaded to the dissolution of the coalition headed by Erbakan. Some of party figures went on to found the presently ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001 out of the ashes of the Welfare Party and its succesor, the Virtue Party.  
 
Koç said that Sabri Erbakan’s request to join the CHP has been accepted by the party’s executive board. 
 
Sabri Erbakan, a former bureaucrat who worked at the Publics Works Ministry, joined Şişli Mayor Mustafa Sarıgül’s Turkish Movement for Change (TDH) in 2010. The AKP had previously considered endorsing him as their candidate for the İzmir mayoralty during the local elections of 2004 and 2009.
 
Erbakan’s membership to CHP came after Sarıgül was himself officialized as a member last week.