İYİ (Good) Party Chairwoman Meral Akşener described Sunday’s election results as a success story for her party at a press conference on Tuesday.
“In our seventh month [as a newly founded party] we have changed the atmosphere stuck between the dichotomy of politics,” Akşener told reporters at party headquarters in Ankara.
“The İYİ Party eliminated the lack of central politics in the first election it has participated in,” she added.
Akşener was criticized for failing to release a statement on election night or challenge the results in front of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) building as she had pledged to do during her campaign.
Responding to the criticism she said she had abandoned a challenge to the election results after seeing that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its candidate Muharrem İnce had already accepted them.
İnce said during a press conference yesterday that the other candidates from the opposition alliance had garnered lower support than expected.
“The hundred-year-old CHP got 22 percent, the 50-year-old [Nationalist Movement Party] 11 percent. [The Justice and Development Party] with all its resources garnered 41 percent. [The Peoples’ Democratic Party] had 11 percent. Without any financial support other than volunteers’ savings, the İYİ Party received 10 percent,” Akşener said in response to İnce.
As to holding a press conference so late, Akşener said she discussed every step with party members before acting.