Turkiye: 1,000 members leave opposition to join Erdogan's party

Turkish President and Leader of the Justice and Development (AK) Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets party members during arrival for his party’s group meeting at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Turkiye [Doğukan Keskinkılıç]

A thousand members joined the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkiye after the left the nationalist Good Party (IYI), led by Meral Aksener. en masse.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed them yesterday during a meeting of AKP’s parliamentary bloc, which was held in the Turkish parliament.

Erdogan presented the AKP’s insignia to a member of the Antalya City Council, Yunus Akpinar, and to Emil Ozden, a lawyer who resigned along with 1,000 members of the Good Party.

The resignations come in light of anger within the right-wing nationalist camp in the IYI following a meeting held by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance electoral bloc of which IYI is a member, with the leaders of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which expressed implicit support for Kilicdaroglu by not filing its own presidential candidate.

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