Another nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party lawmaker has resigned from the party, which has seen a growing exodus of members since last year, mainly due to internal fractures and challenges in the aftermath of its election defeats in May 2023 and March 31, the Kronos news website reported on Friday.
Kayseri MP Dursun Ataş resigned on Friday, saying he believes that “this decision to resign is unavoidable in order to make the best use of the power of representation given to me by our nation.”
After Ataş’s resignation, the İYİ Party’s number of seats in parliament fell to 31.
İYİ Party General Administrative Board member Bahadır Erdem, who resigned from the party on November 10, joined the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in May.
İYİ had previously broken away from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an election ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The İYİ Party’s former leader, Meral Akşener, who was a member of the MHP for years, parted ways with it due to disagreements and established her own party in October 2017.
The party set up an alliance with the CHP before the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2018, which also continued for the 2023 elections. The party, which received 9.9 percent of the nationwide vote and 44 seats in parliament in the general election, left the alliance after the opposition bloc candidate, former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was defeated by Erdoğan in the presidential election.
Akşener refused to ally with the CHP for this year’s March 31 local elections. Her party instead nominated its own candidates in all provinces.
The repercussions of the party’s move to run independently have been significant, with a succession of resignations and dismissals among lawmakers and prominent figures within the party and growing calls for Akşener’s resignation.
She was replaced in April by Müsavat Dervişoğlu, the party’s deputy group chairman and a controversial figure with alleged ties to a former intelligence chief known to have resorted to torture during interrogations.