İYİ Party’s evaluation of election results: Opposition alliance behind loss of votes
İYİ Party executives have held a meeting during which they reportedly said that the opposition Nation Alliance was the reason why their party performed worse than expectations in the elections on May 14.
Duvar English
The center-right İYİ (Good) Party’s top executives and lawmakers gathered on June 2 under the helm of party leader Meral Akşener. The meeting’s agenda was the ordinary congress to be held between June 24-25 and the future of the Nation Alliance, according to reporting by the daily Cumhuriyet.
In general, the party is of the opinion that the opposition alliance has come to an end. Some of the politicians said in their meeting with Akşener that the Nation Alliance was the reason why İYİ Party performed poorly in the parliamentary elections on May 14.
They further reportedly said the İYİ Party was not able to “embrace the nationalist conservative voters due to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)’s wrong policies and political mistakes during the election process.”
Meanwhile, some CHP executives are of the opinion that Akşener’s initial defiance of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential candidacy and a walkout from the six-party bloc has led to a decrease in votes for the opposition. They have reportedly indicated that the İYİ Party has the ambition to be the main opposition party by not being a part of the alliance.
Separately, DEVA Party vice chair Mehmet Emin Ekmen said that İYİ Party’s move to nominate parliamentary candidates under its own lists in some of the provinces led to a loss of seats in the parliament. This was met with rebuke by İYİ Party politicians, with İYİ Party vice chair Burak Akbuyurak saying “Executives of parties that have no electorate should pay attention to their statements.”
İYİ Party received 9.69 percent of the votes in the May 14 parliamentary elections (despite expectations of a higher rate) and won 43 seats in the parliament.