İsmail Ok, a lawmaker from the İYİ (Good) Party, has resigned from the party, accusing management of allowing politicians with ties to George Soros, a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist, to hold prominent positions.
Soros is seen as a bogeyman by conspiracists and some Turkish nationalists who claim he was behind the post-Soviet revolutions in Eastern Europe.
Last week the party’s deputy chairman, Tuba Vural Çolak, also resigned due to intra-party conflicts that she claimed were mismanaged by party executives.
İYİ Chairperson Meral Akşener reacted calmly to Çolak’s resignation, underlining that she respects people’s decisions.
Ok, a deputy from Balıkesir province, in a written statement also criticized the party’s ally, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), for establishing close relations with the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).