Gürkan Özturan’s analysis in The Radical Democrat on March 4, 2023.
On 3 March 2023, the leader of IYI Party in Turkey, Meral Akşener made a statement in front of cameras, after having a meeting with the high level representatives of her party, announcing breaking away from the opposition alliance which had won significant gains in 2019 municipal elections and has been continuing its discussions and expanding since then. The alliance had been gathering for over a year, discussing the roadmap for post-Erdoğan Turkey and plans on how to change the regime in the country from Executive Presidential System to Parliamentary Democratic Republic. The discussion had come down to announcement of a joint-candidate and this has brought IYI Party’s long-term reservations regarding who should be nominated.
The tone of statement by Meral Akşener was quite brutal, despite the content being consistent with IYI Party’s long-term party interests.
She accused the opposition alliance of dictating terms to herself by agreeing on Kılıçdaroğlu as joint candidate.
Akşener referred to candidacy discussions having turned into “showing death and asking for consent to having malaria”.
This was the more problematic part of her speech, as it topples the alliance table.
Additionally, another problematic issue is nomination discussion; Akşener proposed Istanbul and Ankara mayors, namely İmamoğlu and Yavaş as more popular alternatives. However both names had long been announcing support also for Kılıçdaroğlu.
Unless at least one of the mayors were on board with such a statement, this was strategically a mistake in my opinion, to announce names of two mayors from the opposition alliance, which IYI Party was a part of alongside other parties and with support from HDP.
To me, this has been coming for a long time but I would still not expect this to happen so short after the country has suffered the worst disaster in its history with millions being left homeless and hundreds of thousands displaced, tens of thousands dead, wounds still fresh…
Akşener’s tone of voice, the rhetoric in her speech, untimely breaking of the alliance has aggravated the impact on society.
The people have been waiting for consensus among the opposition to rally around one candidate who would accept to turn presidency into a ceremonial role.
Contrary to expectations -especially only 70 days until the elections and so soon after such a disaster- IYI Party proceeded to pursue its party’s best interest but with a massive delay. In my opinion this should have been the case a long time ago, as it was obviously coming.
Having been stripped off of the alliance, IYI Party has been losing members due to resignations since yesterday; however the party has a strong local-presence in many cities and can also become a focal point for voters who have been losing faith in AKP-MHP’s governing alliance.
In the meantime, the opposition alliance can now also expand to include left wing parties -especially the HDP/Kurdish vote- openly, which was previously not possible due to IYI Party’s far right voter base not wanting any such relation, at least openly.
After Akşener’s statement yesterday, 11 metropolitan mayors of CHP posed in the same photo with Kılıçdaroğlu and issued statements endorsing his candidacy. Akşener statement consolidated much of the opposition voters who previously had doubts about Kılıçdaroğlu.
Kılıçdaroğlu issued a video statement where he appears calm and confident about the growth of the alliance with the aim of winning elections.
Minor members of the opposition alliance are also gathering councils and/or issuing statements of support for the alliance.
While many doubt Kılıçdaroğlu -also because of him being Alevi and coming from Tunceli/Dersim- as hatred towards minorities determine quite many voters’ choices, he does have a successful track record in determining long term winning-strategies which proved in 2019.
Since he assumed leadership of CHP in 2010 he has transformed the party and his strategy has been the game-changer for a long time in opposition politics which continuously weakened AKP’s position and forced it into an alliance with radical right parties in recent years.
Ahead of 2019 municipal elections, Kılıçdaroğlu was again criticised heavily for not nominating the most-popular polling candidates; yet his strategy did win the opposition 11 metropolitan municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara which were thought to be impossible.
While there appears to be a set back in the opposition’s progress, this development does not deter the people’s will to see change in the country.
AKP might be cheering for the moment being, I want to trust the people’s choice with finding common grounds, regardless of parties.
Gürkan Özturan’s analysis in The Radical Democrat on March 4, 2023.