In a rare gesture, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dropped all lawsuits and criminal complaints he filed against Meral Akşener, the former leader of the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing Erdoğan’s lawyer.
Lawyer Hüseyin Aydın announced on X on Wednesday that three investigations launched into Akşener based on Erdoğan’s complaints on accusations of insulting the president have been dropped in addition to four lawsuits in which Erdoğan sought non-pecuniary damages from the former İYİ Party leader.
The lawyer did not cite any reason for Erdoğan’s decision to drop the lawsuits and complaints against Akşener, but his move has come on the heels of a visit Akşener paid to Erdoğan at his presidential palace in June, which led to speculation about the purpose of the meeting.
The meeting took place after Akşener was replaced by Müsavat Dervişoğlu, the party’s deputy group chairman and Akşener’s right-hand man, in late April following the İYİ Party’s failure in the March 31 local elections.
Neither Erdoğan nor Akşener issued a statement following their meeting and only posed for photos for the press.
Akşener’s party was in the opposition bloc of parties called the “Table of Six” against Erdoğan’s “Public Alliance,” consisting of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and several other small parties.
Akşener was a fierce critic of Erdoğan before his re-election in May 2023, when the opposition bloc failed to get their candidate, then-Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, elected.
Some people claim that Akşener was Erdoğan’s “Trojan horse” in the “Table of Six.”
Erdoğan had called on Akşener in November 2022 to reconsider her party’s position in the political arena. The president said he wished the İYİ Party would undergo a transformation, leave the “Table of Six” and demonstrate an attitude in line with the interests of the nation.
Akşener rebuffed Erdoğan’s call at the time, saying she wasn’t sitting at a gaming table where the future of the country could be ruined.
A video of Akşener’s promise to “fight to the death against Erdoğan,” which she made during an İYİ Party group meeting three years ago, went viral on social media after her meeting with Erdoğan, with many accusing the politician of not keeping her word and softening her stance against Erdoğan for personal gain.
“Even if I die, even if I am killed, even if I am threatened … I am dishonest if I give up this struggle. … These are the words of a Muslim Turkish woman,” Akşener says in the video.
In a similar move in 2016, Erdoğan withdrew all lawsuits against people charged with insulting him.
He had said he was inspired by the feelings of unity in the wake of a failed coup in July 2016 that claimed the lives of some 250 people.
Thousands of people in Turkey are investigated, prosecuted or convicted on insult charges against the president, which is a crime in Turkey, according to the controversial Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Whoever insults the president can face up to four years in prison, a sentence that can be increased if the crime was committed through the mass media.